E. E. Cummings: Poems E. E. Cummings

Early years

Edward Estlin Cummings was born on October 14, 1894, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Edward Cummings and Rebecca Haswell (née Clarke), a well-known Unitarian couple in the city. His father was a professor at Harvard University who later became nationally known as the minister of South Congregational Church (Unitarian) in Boston, Massachusetts.[4] His mother, who loved to spend time with her children, played games with Edward and his sister, Elizabeth. From an early age, Cummings' parents supported his creative gifts.[5] Cummings wrote poems and drew as a child, and he often played outdoors with the many other children who lived in his neighborhood. He grew up in the company of such family friends as the philosophers William James and Josiah Royce. Many of Cummings' summers were spent on Silver Lake in Madison, New Hampshire, where his father had built two houses along the eastern shore. The family ultimately purchased the nearby Joy Farm where Cummings had his primary summer residence.[6][7]

He expressed transcendental leanings his entire life. As he matured, Cummings moved to an "I, Thou" relationship with God. His journals are replete with references to "le bon Dieu," as well as prayers for inspiration in his poetry and artwork (such as "Bon Dieu! may i some day do something truly great. amen."). Cummings "also prayed for strength to be his essential self ('may I be I is the only prayer—not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong'), and for relief of spirit in times of depression ('almighty God! I thank thee for my soul; & may I never die spiritually into a mere mind through disease of loneliness')".[8]

Cummings wanted to be a poet from childhood and wrote poetry daily from age 8 to 22, exploring assorted forms. He studied Latin and Greek at Cambridge Latin High School. He attended Harvard University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa society in 1915. The following year, he received a Master of Arts degree from the university. During his studies at Harvard, he developed an interest in modern poetry, which ignored conventional grammar and syntax and aimed for a dynamic use of language. His first published poems appeared in Eight Harvard Poets (1917). Upon graduating, he worked for a book dealer.[9]

War years

In 1917, with the First World War going on in Europe, Cummings enlisted in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps. On the boat to France, he met William Slater Brown and they quickly became friends.[9] Due to an administrative error, Cummings and Brown did not receive an assignment for five weeks, a period they spent exploring Paris. Cummings fell in love with the city, to which he would return throughout his life.[10]

During their service in the ambulance corps, the two young writers sent letters home that drew the attention of the military censors. They were known to prefer the company of French soldiers over fellow ambulance drivers. The two openly expressed anti-war views; Cummings spoke of his lack of hatred for the Germans.[11] On September 21, 1917, five months after starting his belated assignment, Cummings and William Slater Brown were arrested by the French military on suspicion of espionage and undesirable activities, they were held for three and a half months in a military detention camp at the Dépôt de Triage, in La Ferté-Macé, Orne, Normandy.[10]

They were imprisoned with other detainees in a large room. Cummings' father made strenuous efforts to obtain his son's release through diplomatic channels; although advised his son's release was approved, there were lengthy delays, with little explanation. In frustration, Cummings' father wrote a letter to President Woodrow Wilson in December 1917. Cummings was released on December 19, 1917, returning to his family in the U.S. by New Year's Day, 1918. Cummings, his father, and Brown's family continued to agitate for Brown's release. By mid-February, he, too, was America-bound. Cummings used his prison experience as the basis for his novel, The Enormous Room (1922), about which F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "Of all the work by young men who have sprung up since 1920 one book survives—The Enormous Room by E. E. Cummings ... Those few who cause books to live have not been able to endure the thought of its mortality."[12][13][14] Later in 1918 he was drafted into the army. He served a training deployment[9] in the 12th Division at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, until November 1918.[15][16]

Buffalo Bill's defunct         who used to         ride a watersmooth-silver                                   stallion and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat                                                   Jesus he was a handsome man                       and what i want to know is how do you like your blueeyed boy Mister Death

"Buffalo Bill's" (1920)[a]

Post-war years

Cummings returned to Paris in 1921, and lived there for two years before returning to New York. His collection Tulips and Chimneys, was published in 1923, and his inventive use of grammar and syntax is evident. The book was heavily cut by his editor. XLI Poems was published in 1925. With these collections, Cummings made his reputation as an avant garde poet.[9]

During the rest of the 1920s and 1930s, Cummings returned to Paris a number of times, and traveled throughout Europe. In 1931 Cummings traveled to the Soviet Union, recounting his experiences in Eimi, published two years later. During these years Cummings also traveled to Northern Africa and Mexico, and he worked as an essayist and portrait artist for Vanity Fair magazine (1924–1927).[17][18][19]

In 1926, Cummings' parents were in a car crash; only his mother survived, although she was severely injured. Cummings later described the crash in the following passage from his i: six nonlectures series given at Harvard (as part of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) in 1952 and 1953:[20][21]

A locomotive cut the car in half, killing my father instantly. When two brakemen jumped from the halted train, they saw a woman standing – dazed but erect – beside a mangled machine; with blood spouting (as the older said to me) out of her head. One of her hands (the younger added) kept feeling her dress, as if trying to discover why it was wet. These men took my sixty-six-year old mother by the arms and tried to lead her toward a nearby farmhouse; but she threw them off, strode straight to my father's body, and directed a group of scared spectators to cover him. When this had been done (and only then) she let them lead her away.

— E. E. Cummings (1952). "i & my parents: Nonlecture one", p. 12

His father's death had a profound effect on Cummings, who entered a new period in his artistic life. He began to focus on more important aspects of life in his poetry. He started this new period by paying homage to his father in the poem "my father moved through dooms of love".[b][23]

In the 1930s, Samuel Aiwaz Jacobs was Cummings' publisher; he had started the Golden Eagle Press after working as a typographer and publisher.[24]

Final years

In 1952, his alma mater, Harvard University, awarded Cummings an honorary seat as a guest professor. The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures he gave in 1952 and 1955 were later collected as i: six nonlectures.[25]

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

— From "i thank You God for most this amazing" (1950)[c]

Cummings spent the last decade of his life traveling, fulfilling speaking engagements, and spending time at his summer home, Joy Farm, in Silver Lake, New Hampshire. He died of a stroke on September 3, 1962, at the age of 67 at Memorial Hospital in North Conway, New Hampshire.[27] Cummings was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts. At the time of his death, Cummings was recognized as the "second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost".[28]

Cummings' papers are held at the Houghton Library at Harvard University and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.[10]