Sound, oil painting by E. E. Cummings
Metropolitan Museum, New York
Photograph courtesy of the E. E. Cummings Trust
___________
THE POETRY OF THE EYE
AFTER CUMMINGS HAD DISCOVERED Cubism and Futurism (the Italian painter Marinetti’s term for Cubism in motion), he read all that he could on the new developments in the arts. Later, when he enrolled in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps and was sent to France in 1917 as an ambulance driver, he found the modern movement in the arts flourishing in Paris. He saw Stravinsky’s ballet Pétrouchka, staged by Les Ballets Russes. He attended the première of Erik Satie’s Parade with sets by Picasso. He visited the Luxembourg Gallery, where the paintings of the Impressionists and Cézanne, a precursor of Cubism, were on display. He was able to buy Matisse prints at the stalls of the bouquinistes. All this exposure to new concepts in art made its impact on the experiments that Cummings began to try out. He had recognized the key feature of the new art, which was break-up and restructuring. Although Cubism provided the initial impulse that pushed him toward new directions in literary expression, he continued to be innovative for decades, in the same way that Cubism as an international style in the visual arts developed into other modes on the way to abstraction.
The first four poems in this section show Cummings’ attempt to express his inner experience in the creation of a literary or an artistic work. The first one, “of my,” written before 1920, conveys his sense of entering a new world of aesthetic expression where the forms and motifs of the modern French painters exist. The second, also written before 1920, is a tribute to Picasso in which he tries to express in words what Picasso achieved in line and color.
The second group of poems in this section shows the effects that the new painters had on Cummings’ work. “writhe and,” begun in 1916, presents sunset in the city: it first depicts the harshness of the cityscape by means of twisted and distorted word usage and through images of noise—breaking, scraping, colliding, shouts and crashes. Then the language changes the angularity of the city buildings, softening them into natural forms as dusk falls.
The emphasis here and in “Picasso” is on sound, but the rest of the poems in this group depend on visual arrangements. Generally speaking, Cummings’ handling of spacing, typography, and punctuation provides visual guidance in most of his poems. But here is a cluster of poems that go further. In order for a reader to experience these works at all, they must be seen on the page. In fact, they cannot be read aloud.
In “mr. smith,” we see on the left side of the page a man sitting by the fireside reading a letter, the handwriting of which is described in the middle of the page, and then we read phrases from the letter on the right side of the page. His response to the letter, “smiles friend smith” and “haha” are in mid-page, joining the two sides. As we come to understand from the fragments of the letter that it is a tearful message from a girl whose mother has insisted on breaking up their relationship, we feel pathos the more keenly because of the comfortable picture of “mr. smith” warming his toes that has been built up on the left side of the page. More important, the visual arrangement, including the fragmented contents of the letter, has required the reader to participate in bringing the poem into meaning.
Patterns are the main feature of many of these poems, “the sky” is an experiment in arranging words in columns according to their vowel sounds. The poem “n” has its symmetry of letters and letter groups, very appropriate for its quiet theme. The others show action. “l(a” presents a statement about a falling leaf in an arrangement that brings out the idea of oneness embedded in loneliness. The remainder of the poems give visual presentation to whatever is being stated or described: a green sprout growing, a grasshopper leaping, an electrical storm, a foggy dawn, a striptease dancer moving through her routine, birds in flight that disappear, Sunday morning bells ringing.
Cummings had in mind creations of this sort when he said, ‘The day of the spoken lyric is past. The poem which has at last taken its place does not sing itself; it builds itself, three-dimensionally, gradually, subtly, in the consciousness of the experiencer.”
of my
soul a street is:
prettinesses Pic-
abian tricktrickclickflick-er
garnished
of stark Picasso
throttling trees
hither
my soul
repairs herself with
prisms of sharp mind
and Matisse rhythms
to juggle Kandinsky gold-fish
away from the gripping gigantic
muscles of Cézanne’s
logic,
oho.
a street
there is
where strange birds purr
Picasso
you give us Things
which
bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind
you make us shrill
presents always
shut in the sumptuous screech of
simplicity
(out of the
black unbunged
Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes
or
between squeals of
Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness
solid screams whisper.)
Lumberman of The Distinct
your brain’s
axe only chops hugest inherent
Trees of Ego,from
whose living and biggest
bodies lopped
of every
prettiness
you hew form truly
writhe and
gape of tortured
perspective
rasp and graze of splintered
normality
crackle and
sag
of planes clamors of
collision
collapse As
peacefully,
lifted
into the awful beauty
of sunset
the young city
putting off dimension with a blush
enters
the becoming garden of her agony
mr. smith
is reading
his letter
by the fire-
light
tea-time
smiles friend smith
no type bold o’s
d’s gloat
droll l’s twine
r’s rove
haha
sweet-hearts
part fellow
like darl- write
i dream my try ned ma
thinks
right thing will be still
till death
thine
blows ring
strokes nose P
toasts toes S
kiss
the sky
was can dy
lu mi
nous ed
i
ble
spry pinks
shy lem
ons
greens
cool
choco lates
un der
a lo
co
mo tive s pout
ing
vi
o lets
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
s(
these out of in
finite no
where,who;arrive s
trollingly
:alight whitely and.
)now
flakes:are;guests,of t
wi
ligh
t
how
tinily
of
squir(two be
tween sto
nes)ming a gr
eenes
t you b
ecome
s whi
(mysterious
ly)te
one
t
hou
n
OthI
n
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y
SteR
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eringint(o-
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eA
!p:
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(r
rIvInG .gRrEaPsPhOs)
to
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,grasshopper;
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the
how
dis(appeared cleverly)world
iS Slapped:with;liGhtninG
!
at
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THuNdeRB
loSSo!M iN
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Lide.!high
n , o ; w :
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o all the roofs roar
drownInsound(
&
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)Whoshout(Ghost)atOne(voiceless)O
ther or im)
pos
sib(ly as
leep)
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U
n:starT birDs(lEAp)Openi ng
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—sing
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?eartH)N,ew
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if a mys
teriouSly(“i am alive”
)
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ly and(th
e moon’s al-down)most whis
per(here)ingc r O
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t b
ecomin
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!
m ore&(o uto f)mor e torn(f og r
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mf(ull
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tI
r
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i,
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)& it:s;elf,
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sh estiffl
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dbut sth
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r
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aling 2 a
-sprout eyelands)sin
uously&them&twi
tching,begins
unununun?
butbutbut??
tonton??
ing????
steps;which
flipchucking
.grins
gRiNdS
d is app ea r in gly
eyes grip live loop croon mime
nakedly hurl asquirm the
dip&giveswoop&swoon&ingly
seethe firm swirl hips whirling climb to
GIVE
(yoursmine mineyours yoursmine
!
i()t)
birds(
here,inven
ting air
U
)sing
tw
iligH(
t’s
v
va
vas
vast
ness.Be)look
now
(come
soul;
&:and
who
s)e
voi
c
es
(
are
ar
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(b
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ar;rive go. faces a(live)
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Is
(pour wo
(things)
men
selves-them
inghurl)bangbells(yawnchurches
suck people)reel(dark-
ly(whirling
in
(b
ellSB
el
Ls)
-to sun(crash).Streets
glit
ter
a,strut:do;colours;are:m,ove
o im
-pos-
sibl
y
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flowerish boom
slcry)
(be
llsbe
lls)
b
(be
llsbell)
ells
(shells)