Poets Online Archive
inspired by E.E. Cummings
I was watching a chipmunk on my backyard deck. It was chewing away on a crocus bulb that it had taken from the box of them I had left there unplanted. I thought of our current model poem, "& sun &" by E.E. Cummings from his 100 Selected Poems. It's a poem I first encountered in high school - where most of us first saw Cummings's poems. They were odd. They were different. And inevitably a few class poets would begin to eschew capitalization and punctuation in their poems. A very influential poet to adolescents. Also a poet often dismissed by readers when they are older.
Typography and grammar were his tools and toys. The critics never loved him as much as readers. Yet, he survives.
This small poem, as tall as a standing chipmunk, was one I have used with many students. With a little push from shore by me, they usually would find that "everywhere" is also "here" and even "very here" (the sun IS everywhere but it is VERY here in that spotlight on the chipmunk). It is "noon" (the time) and it is "noon e - no one" in this empty place. It is "this boulder" but it is "his boulder" for that moment. Finally, it is "dreachipmunkming" - the word game of a chipmunk in the middle of dreaming.
Later, a few students would pick up the big Complete Poems from my shelf and begin to skim. They always seemed disappointed to find so many "regular poems" in the book. But then they'd find
anyone lived
in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did
or a poem titled " r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r" and a stanza that said
always
it's
Spring)and
everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves
and they seemed happy again. What more can I ask of him or them?
Your turn. Let words be toys and tools again. Play with the grammar, capitalization, spelling, word order, spacing and typography - but play for a reason.
See Paintings by Cummings and More of his poetry
CHICAGO
in chicago
we
walk
like
this
(wind, you know)
some
step lightly
'round mounds of trash,
sepia glass,
pain-in-the-ass hop-
scotch
some
saunter sideways
maybe bent,
maybe not some walk
sdrawkcab
finding shelter in gangways,
alleyways,
hallways,
doorways,
away from the freeze to a safe place,
warm place,
un-breezy place to smoke,
shoot,
snort,
pop, sniff or
gulp in chicago
we
walk
like
this
(wind, you know)
Pammy
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
"Singing is
speech slowed down." Marshall McLuhan
At midnight
in the
garden gone wild
at
summer's end
I can hear the singing
all around me.
The desire of the moth
for the star.
The plant's roots singing
for the deep water.
The bird's blind song
of the day past.
Desires
(fifteen
feet wide and twice as deep)
solid
in mass yet
remarkably light to hold.
Look at her throned head
pointing North
spending half the night
upside-down.
I tried to harmonize
once,
only to discover that we were all singing
our
own
notes,
in a
round
that
some
times
crosses
like constellated stars,
my own figure
a
woman
arms outstretched
and chained
at the wrists.
"The future’s not ours to see."
Not
to see
WHAT?
Ever’s future?
WHAT?
NOT OURS,
not ever!
Ours
to see
WHAT?
The (h)ours?
To
WHAT?
(For) ever
not ours!
L
the
p
re
cognition
of
y
our
face
s
oft
in
my
dreams.
Ken Ronkowitz
LILY... Time was music with Lily... something played early... certain mornings... late autumn... the aroma of coffee brewing over a small fire... And the slow slow jazz of waking when... Lily was inspired... music became light... there in the clearing where she danced... Her feet through the leaves like... small brooms sweeping time... Andrew R Cohen