Poetry beyond punctuation

How can one look at the realm of 20th century poetry without paying homage to E.E. Cummings

October 24, 2014 07:45 pm | Updated May 23, 2016 07:37 pm IST - COIMBATORE

E.E.Cummings.

E.E.Cummings.

The title of this week’s article might have led you to the prolific prodigy that is E.E.Cummings. Here is a modern poet at the heights of his power- shunning syntax and punctuation and using language to his heart’s content, thus creating a mind-altering state in a poem. This also makes it rather difficult to capture the essence of his writing in an article. It isn’t just his poetry or his name that reflects his beliefs. We see it in his prose writing too.

In Introduction from Collected Poems by e.e.cummings , he says, “The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople–it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Most people have less in common with ourselves than the square root of minus one. You and I are human beings: mostpeople are snobs.”

I have always been intrigued by this eccentric, sometimes hard-to-read use of words that blend and flow. Cummings was a radical, iconoclastic in his use of everything from spelling to technique. His themes range from war, politics and sex to love and nature. In his work, the body has its own language and it’s explicit.

A friend sent me a Cummings classic, i carry your heart a long time ago and it was like nothing I had ever seen. “i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)/ i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you/here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart/ i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)”.

The poet speaks in a conversational style, indulging in a soliloquy. Yes, he has the heart of the beloved. He’s never away from it. In his explaining this idea, that he’s never far away from that beloved’s beloved heart, is where the magic of this poem lies. This is no ordinary love, is it? This is a poem that lends itself to recitation and song.

Edward Estlin Cummings wasn’t a poet alone. He was a novelist, painter and playwright. His experimentation created a style that is instantly recognisable.

In A Poet’s Advice to Students , he said, “As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time – and whenever we do it, we’re not poets.”

We use words, but never like him.

Srividya is a published poet. Read her work at www.rumwrapt.blogspot.com

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