i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
E.E. Cummings
If you have no use for poetry, stop here, because of all poets you surely have no use for E.E. Cummings (also know as e.e. cummings). Cummings defied all the laws of poetry, utilizing irregular punctuation, little to no capitalization, nonsensical syntax, and other breakage of form, and yet his poems do carry rich meaning and are simply fun to read.
Take the above poem, for example. Just try it. Read it aloud. The pleasure is much like you receive from reading a nursery rhyme. (In fact, if you like this one, read "anyone lived in a pretty how town," as it's even more fun to read.) You might think I'm easily pleased, but really, if you don't enjoy the sound of nursery rhymes, you've lost something rich and good. Find some young children and read some to them, why don't you? Or Dr. Suess as well.
But Cummings was on another level, altogether. He may not have been a Christian, though certainly in later years he was said to embrace a "conservative Christian anarchy" (whatever that is). He was reared Unitarian, but came to believe in Christ as his mediator and in the resurrection of the body, so, maybe he was close, and maybe he came to faith in the God of Christianity, and maybe close is not good enough. God knows. Someone described him as beginning life as a scoffer (he had a sarcastic tongue and pen) but becoming more and more a Christian.
This poem immediately brings to mind Psalm 8 ("When I consider your heavens. . . what is man that thou art mindful of him?) in the contrast between Creator and created in the third stanza, as well as of Psalm 19, in its animation of Creation. But enough. It's too boring to analyze poetry. You need to read it, aloud. So, to read more e.e. cummings poetry, try this site.
And have fun. Remember, they're just nursery rhymes with bigger ideas.
[The charcoal is a self-portrait by the poet, who was also a painter.]
