E.E. Cummings

Cummings was the first poet to produce poems out of his images, imagination, and nonconformity. He never followed rules and never followed trends. Cummings used his mind to draw images and poems into his poems. Cummings also had many influences that support all his poems. Most of his poems are either from experiences he has faced or those in his mind.

E.E. Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1894 (Bernstein 709). As a minister, he had participated in the teacup society. College led Cummings to become a cubist painter, where he tried out free verse. This is where many experiments from his poems come from (Friedman 79).

Many influences came from being a nonconformist and an individualist. He would always go his own way. Cummings was influenced by syntactical terms from the late Gertrude Stein and imagistic experiments from Amy Lowell. Numerous ideas of poetry came from his painting. His mind would turn the work of art into words and put those words onto paper. As he was growing up in a liberal home, he was forced to become a minister and had to follow in his fathers footsteps. This led to a several poems. His married life was a disaster. Cummings had three different wives, and after every divorce he came out with a hard hitting book of poems about his experience with his wife. He became a cynical critic of American culture. Those influences and much more led to his dysfunctional use of the English language.

In Cummings’ poems he never used correct grammar (Dickey 155). He would distort the English language. He wanted to use nontraditional forms of writings and language yet he stayed with contemporary literature as well (Bernstein 709). His works had a relationship between the devices he used and the vision they had served (Friedman 56). The upper case was rarely used, only for something that needed to be stressed with a great deal. Cummings never minded being wrong; he would not even be ashamed of using controversial and harsh words (Friedman 40). “He was a poet of sensation rather than of thoughts,” said Friedman. “As he matured he developed a vision of life” (Friedman 2).

Cummings used many techniques in his poems. Imagery was a big hit in his works. It is a style that expresses emotion directly towards images. He used his images and translated them into words and common speech (Kennedy EE 4). Cummings also used pathetic fallacy and imagery and turned it into rhythm of human life. He gave inanimate objects human emotions and characteristics, like angry cloud or cruel wind (Dickey 154). He would never use metrical regularity and following the crowd. Cummings used many clichйs in his patriotic poems (Kennedy EE 4).

He wanted his work to let everyone know they must strive to be unique (Bernstein 709). Many times his work was rejected as sentimental and politically naпve. This led to many more poems being written in a nonconformist way. He was very insecure when people would dismiss his work. It only made him strive to become unique and diverse

(Everett 1). His use of language was from the basis of his life. Every experiment or expression he used came through into his poems some way (Friedman 79).

Much of Cummings poetry used a different style of grammar. Cummings would only use a verb to bring the word alive and give it the highest compliment (Friedman 89). Many words used were outside the critically fashionable definitions. His poems are in their own world beyond villains and heroes (Friedman 10). Every syllable, constant, and vowel actually meant its own image. He would especially stress the syllables because he believed each had it’s own meaning (Friedman 103). Cummings’ use of abstract words would give it a particular meaning while also having the general meaning of the word. Many of Cummings’ words he used actually intended to be the opposite meanings (Friedman 23).

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