Category: E. E. Cummings

Odds and Ends

12/14/2025

My recent info has featured Joseph Rodman Drake’s poem “The American Flag.” Yesterday’s post compared Drake’s poem to other works written three to four decades before and after, including Philip Freneau’s “On the Memorable Victory,” Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Banner at Daybreak,” and more.

Concerning that post, I have a few loose ends to tie up:

* In Drake’s poem, I came across the word “careering” (line 3 of the fourth stanza), a word with which I was unfamiliar. Evidently, it shares the same definition as “careening” – but often on a horse. I don’t believe I’d ever come across this word before. Then lo and behold, I landed on Whitman’s work, "Song of the Banner at Daybreak,” and there some thirty-plus lines into the poem came this, “On floats the sea in distant blue CAREERING through its channels.” A Baader-Meinhof moment, to be sure.

* About the sixth line in the third stanza of Drake’s poem, I said this: “I’m not sure why the apostrophe was used in “dimmed” (“Had dimm’d the glistening bayonet”). Then, in yesterday’s post, I forgot to mention the overuse of apostrophes in Freneau’s lines “On the Memorable Victory” (HERE) – beyond the expected poetic contractions like “o’er,” “e’er,” and “‘Twas.”

Freneau used apostrophes in cry’d, resolv’d, brac’d, advanc’d, unfurl’d, arm’d, accomplish’d, lash’d, flash’d, heav’n, join’d, and many m’re!. LOL – many more!

(I look’d into this, so I’ll share what I found tomorrow.)

* I titled yesterday’s post on my site as “Yet Do I Marvel,” in reference to my use of the word “marvel” in the closing line of the piece, “how I marvel at how her (Dickinson's) language, thoughts, and style influenced the soul of poetry.” However, the title was also an allusion to a poem by Countee Cullen, a poet associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

** My discussion yesterday of the evolution of poetic forms and styles made me think of E. E. Cummings’ poem “old age sticks,” a poem which I wrote about HERE

Cumming’s work concludes with the two words, “growing old”; however, the printed letters on the page are split between two lines, so that the last line of the poem also reads “owing old” – to suggest that a younger generation “owes” those in the one before it for pushing boundaries and being agents of change – and the theme fits perfectly with my post from yesterday.
More about “old age sticks” and “what makes a poem a poem” is HERE.

* In yesterday’s post I also mentioned William Carlos Williams “The Red Wheelbarrow.” I’ve discussed that poem in past posts, HERE and HERE.

Book Report

12/10/2025

Callooh! Callay! Today is Emily Dickinson’s 195th birthday.

We are so very lucky that Emily’s sister Lavinia did not, in fact, burn all of Dickinson’s personal effects – all of her letter and poems – as Victorians were wont to do – or we would not even know that one of the great world poets had lived in that place of Amherst, Massachusetts, and in that time of Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman.

Oh, Lavinia had, indeed, begun the accepted practice of burning everything, starting with a pyre of Dickinson’s letters (those that had been dispatched to her), but something gave her pause when she realized the sheer volume of poetry her sister had left in her room.

By chance, I visited our local Barnes and Nobles yesterday, and every time I’m in a bookstore, I check to see what Dickinson they have on the shelves. On this occasion, B&N had two volumes of Thomas Johnson’s 1955 “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson” – and no “complete” volumes edited by R. W. Franklin (1998) or Cristanne Miller (2016). There was also one small collection entitled “Envelope Poems.”

However, right next to Johnson’s editions, I spied with my little eye a book entitled, “One Poem A Day.”

“Hmm,” I wondered, “I wonder what poems they in there by Dickinson?” -- and I make no apologies for being redundant with the verb “wonder.”

Well, it turned out not to be a “poem a day” book – as in, “here’s a poem for you to read and think about each day.” No, ’twas a “Writer’s Daily Journal of Words & Inspiration,” a guided journal with prompts and fill-in-the blanks in which one could compose a poem a day.

Nearby on the shelf, though, was “The Best Poems of the English Language,” and of course, I knew Dickinson would be included there. She was represented by twenty of her poems, some but not all of the expected heavyweights and more than a few surprises.

In another anthology that caught my eye, “A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker 1925 – 2025,” I didn’t expect I’d see Dickinson. I assumed that the volume included poems written expressly for the magazine at the time of publication vs. poems already written to be discussed in various articles on poetics – but I checked anyway. Yep, no Dickinson. However, another favorite of mine, E. E. Cummings, was found inside with two poems.

NOTE: A recent post included some discussion of Cummings' "who are you,little i" -- HERE.

“Hmm,” I wondered, “I wonder if any Dickinson is in there?” (Again, no apologies.)

Nope, no Dickinson. However, one title caught my eye in the table of contents, “In a station at the Metro,” a work by Ezra Pound. Okay, that really surprised me – Ezra Pound? Mindfulness? Joy?

In a post from mid-November, I made the comment, “(Dickinson) did use terminology more readily accessible to those of her age, and she did write for an educated reader, but I would not aver that she was being deliberately complex so as not to be understood – say, like Ezra Pound.”

Sooo…I turned to Pound’s poem in the book, and there it was – just two lines:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.

What are your thoughts?

I found info on this work, Imagism, and verbless poetry HERE.

TBH, I’ll discuss all of this in a future post; for now I’ll conclude with one other pleasant surprise.

Next to the book on mindfulness, I caught sight of a slim volume called “Dog Poems.” Just as I had figured, the collection included Dickinson’s “I started early – took my dog” so no surprise there.

However, when I scanned the table of contents, I came upon a poem called “Verses for a Certain Dog” by, of all people, Dorothy Parker – she, the exemplar of acerbic wit and sharp cynicism. I turned to it quickly – did she have barbed and biting words for "man's best friend"? ( LOL: Headline: Woman Bites Dog.)

Not at all. Oh, the poem includes plenty of Parker’s wit and humor, but it’s an affectionate verse dedicated to “God’s kindliest gift of all.”

You can read the entire poem HERE.

Birthday Songs

11/25/2025

I had a busy weekend. I just finished a gig playing the piano for a local production of “The Nutcracker” – not the ballet, but a comedic play somewhat based on the storyline from the ballet. The play ran Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon. Plus, on Sunday morning, I rehearsed with my friend who will be singing my Dickinson-based songs for our third-annual Emily Dickinson birthday celebration.

In addition, throughout the weekend I spent time working on the program. The pics below are of a draft. Like the past two events, this one will include ten songs – eight are based on poems by Dickinson, one based on “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou, and one based on a poem by E. E. Cummings.

I paired the first two poems to demonstrate how I ended each song – one with a strong cadence to reflect definite resolution as “My River runs to thee” ends with an exclamation mark, and one with a series of chords to suggest a sense of incompletion as “After great pain, a formal feeling comes’ ends with a dash.

NOTE: I HAVE REVISED THE PROGRAM, AND THE PICS ABOVE HAVE BEEN UPDATED TO REFLECT THE CHANGES.

The third number is based on “There’s a certain slant of light,” and the music is anything but light – in the sense of being buoyant or bright. I used low base notes in the intro to characterize a shaft of light, but one that was heavy and onerous to stay true to the third & fourth lines: “That oppresses like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes.”

The next song is lighter – based on “There is a June when corn is cut” – but with a touch of wistfulness.

The next is a very lyrical tune based on “The Sun just touched the Morning,” followed by a reflective and flowing piece for E. E. Cummings’ “the great advantage of being alive.”

For “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” I wrote a very bouncy, playful song to reflect confidence in one’s humble ways. After all, the opening words, “I’m Nobody” are capitalized, and the are followed by an exclamation point!

Next up is “I felt a funeral in my brain,” and I love that I was able to fit the poem to a classic hit by Procol Harem, “A Whiter Shad of Pale.” The chord progression works perfectly!

The penultimate number is based on Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise,” and the song is a combination of oppressive chords for the verses with an upbeat and uplifting chorus.

The recital will end with a playful, tongue-in-cheek operatic-ish number based on “Adrift! A little boat adrift.” It’s fun to play!

Again, all the pics above show the first draft of the program. I’ll take a look at it again after Thanksgiving to see how I might revise it.

NOTE: I HAVE REVISED THE PROGRAM, AND THE PICS ABOVE HAVE BEEN UPDATED TO REFLECT THE CHANGES.

NOTE: I’ll have a post tomorrow about the coming feast-filled holiday, and then I’ll be on a break with Dickinson posts from the 27th through the 30th. I’ll pick back up on Monday, December 1.

Branching Out

11/17/2025

Yesterday, I opened with some lyrics from “California Dreaming,” and I closed with this quiz: I’ll provide a few lines from the song with a word missing, and you have to say what the word is. Here are the lines:

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way
Well, I got down on my knees (got down on my knees)
And I _____ to pray (I _____ to pray)

The answer: “pretend” (Most people tend to remember hearing the word “began”)

So back to Dickinson: Yesterday I also looked at the poet’s use of the word “tree” and other woodland words. “Tree” turned up in 58 different poems; other words I checked including the following

Dirt, mud, sapling, and shrub: 1 poem each
Bush – 7 poems
Grass – 33 poems
Ground – 26 poems
The top word was flower which Dickinson included in 90 poems.

Today, I checked tree-related words:

Trunk: 0
(Dickinson used the word "trunk" once, but not as the woody base of a tree. "To pack her trunk" appears in "Were nature mortal lady.")
Sap 2
Bark 4
Branch: 4
Root: 8
Leaf: 7
(“Leaf” appears in one other poem, “’Twas the old road through pain,” but it is used to signify the page of a book.)
Leaves: 11
(The word "leaves" appears in 57 poems; however, only 11 of those pertain to trees' leaves.)
Twig: 12

For today, I thought I’d share a very ambiguous poem, “I am alive – I guess” – a poem that uses the word “branch.”

Hmm…read through the poem, and let me know what you think – is the speaker alive or – or not? There seems to be some doubt. She states she is alive. She can fog a glass with her breath – and she’s not laid out in the parlor for mourners to view (isn’t line 14 deliciously creepy?). And look at Dickinson’s use of dashes – the line-to-dash ratio is high; there are only four lines in this 28-line poem with no dashes. To me, this plenitude of dashes adds to the ambiguity.

The first stanza and Dickinson’s use of the word “branches” called to mind E. E. Cummings’ “when god lets my body be.” Of course, in that poem the speaker is alive, though conjecturing an afterlife through nature.

I mentioned Dickinson’s dashes; in Cumming’s poem, take a look at the capital letters. Of course, Cummings is known for his established but unconventional use of lower-case letters; however, in this poem, he capitalized the words “From,” “Between,” “My,” and “With.” What do you make of that?

Frost Alert (and More!)

11/4/2025

In the past few days, I shared poems by Dickinson that include the word “November” along with one poem given the title “November” by Mabel Loomis Todd. Today, I have two other “November” poems, but this time they’re not by Dickinson. I have one by Robert Frost and one by E. E. Cummings.

Frost’s poem, “My November Guest,” employs the use of the literary element called an “apostrophe” – not the punctuation mark to signify a possessive noun or a contraction, but the device whereby a speaker addresses an inanimate object or abstract quality. In this poem, the speaker talks directly to his “Sorrow,” who “Thinks these dark days of autumn rain / Are beautiful as days can be.”

Do you love the “bare November days / Before the coming of the snow”? If so, you’ll appreciate Frost’s work.

In the other poem, by Cummings, the speaker is addressing a child – the speaker’s past self? i.e., “little i” – and perhaps recalling a smple childhood memory, watching a sunset from a window. Then, a wonderful epiphany emerges at the end, “that if day / has to become night / this is a beautiful way.”

Bonus poem! The marvelous ending to Cummings’ lines called to mind a poem by Dickinson, not about November but about sunsets, “The largest fire ever known.” However, in Dickinson’s poem, the childlike wonder and awe found in Cummings’ “who are you,little i,” is now replaced with the indifference and detachment of adults. Over and over again, the sunset brings no surprise, no amazement.

Well, that brought the room down, huh?

We can’t end on this note! So here’s a second bonus poem, Walt Whitman’s “Song at Sunset,” a celebration of the beauty and wonder of the natural world and the human experience.
Whitman’s poem opens with these lines:

Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat—you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.

It ends with this:

O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration.

The complete poem is HERE.

Mark My Words!

9/24/2025

Callooh! Callay! It’s National Punctuation Day!

Here’s some info from an article in Wikipedia: “National Punctuation Day is a celebration of punctuation that occurs each year on September 24 in the United States of America. Founded by Jeff Rubin in 2004, National Punctuation Day simply promotes the correct usage of punctuation.”

For a brief history of the day, click HERE.

Of course, my first thought after reading that was “Who the hell is Jeff Rubin?” (TBH, I added “the hell” for dramatic effect.)
According to Wikipedia, “Jeff Rubin is a Canadian economist and author. He is a former chief economist at CIBC World Markets and is currently a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.” More info is HERE.

A Canadian? An economist? What the hell? (More dramatic effect, eh?) Okay, he’s also an author, hence, the interest in punctuation.

But stop the presses. Hmm…I checked the Wikipedia page on Rubin, and it made no mention at all about National Punctuation Day, which, I assume, would be his greatest achievement.

I did further research and found this on a different site: National Punctuation Day was started by “Jeff Rubin from the San Francisco, CA area; Jeff was a newsletter publisher and former reporter. In the early 2000s, he became increasingly frustrated by poor and erroneous punctuation." However, another site said the day was “established in 2004 by economist and author Jeff Rubin.”

So who knows – maybe I have the correct Jeff Rubin; maybe I don’t. The more important question at hand is whether or not I’ve confused you enough about this while using correct punctuation. Hmm…should I have ended that last statement with a question mark?

Let’s move on. I also found this quote:

"Your grammar is a reflection of your image. Good or bad, you have made an impression. And like all impressions, you are in total control.” ~ Jeffrey Gitomer

Of course, my first thought after reading that was “Who the hell is Jeffrey Gitomer?” (Again, I added “the hell” for dramatic effect.) My second thought? Should I have put a period after Gitomer’s last name in the statement above? Then I thought, “Is a comma necessary after the word ‘was’ in the opening sentence to this paragraph?”

Typically, the comma is the mark most frequently used to introduce quoted material. For example, “Emily Dickinson said, ‘To live is so startling it leaves but little room for other occupations.’”

However, when the quoted material flows directly from your introductory text, no punctuation should be used before the quotation. Yikes – I won’t even get into the placement of the period in that Dickinson quote I quoted (should periods be inside or outside the quotation marks?) and my use of double and single quotation marks.

Well, I’ve rambled on long enough. My original intent for today was to write about Emily Dickinson’s use of punctuation, particularly the em dash (which was named for her, you know – and nothing anyone says will convince me otherwise).
Instead, I will leave you with three heavily punctuated poems by E. E. Cummings. What do you make of these?

1. s.ti:rst;hiso,nce;ma:n

(Hint: The first line says, “stirs this once man”…and think of a drunk man waking up in the gutter.)

2. r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r

(Hint: Think of a grasshopper hopping around and rearranging himself on the page.)

3. t,h;r:u;s,h;e:s

(Hint: Are those various punctuation marks in the opening line silent thrushes in the silver moonlight?)

Guess Work

8/16/2025

Yesterday, I shared a painting by Frida Kahlo which I had seen at the current Kahlo exhibit at the VMFA, along with two of my favorite poems by Dickinson.

This morning I have another of Kahlo’s paintings from the exhibit, and this painting called to mind a favorite poem of mine by E. E. Cummings, “when god lets my body be.”

It also reminded me of Dickinson’s “I am alive – I guess” because of the poem’s opening lines:

I am alive – I guess –
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory –
And at my finger's end –

This poem is doubtful and melancholic at the start. The poet states, “I am alive,” but then the speak adds, “I guess.”

Hmm. Is she not sure she is alive? She is holding flowers after all (stanza 1), and if she huffs on a mirror, she can see proof of her breath (stanza 2).

In stanzas 3 and 4, she states “I am alive – because” – because she is not a corpse in a parlor being viewed by mourners asking "Was it conscious – when it stepped / In Immortality?"

Stanza 5 opens with the same statement, “I am alive – because” – because she is not in a grave with a tombstone marked with “my Girlhood's name – So Visitors may know / Which Door is mine” (stanza 6).

She is alive, indeed, and the poem ends in a more exuberant tone:

How good – to be alive!
How infinite — to be
Alive – two-fold – The Birth I had –
And this – besides, in – Thee!

Yes, “How good – to be alive! How infinite – the be.” As my mother used to say, “It sure beats the alternative."

Bye, Coincidence

6/2/2025

Yesterday I provided details about “a supernova of Baader Meinhof moments I experienced recently – a union of coincidental connections betwixt assorted details from several of my recent posts.”

All of this came about when I stumbled upon a 2020 essay entitled “An Acrostic Window on Emily Dickinson’s ‘I dwell in Possibility’” by Julia Hejduk of Baylor University.

In the essay, Hejduk argues the the deliberate inclusion of an acrostic in “I dwell in Possibility” “offers a clue to the riddle of its voice, simultaneously suggesting that the speaking ‘I’ is the Poem, the Poet, and God.”

In essence, Hejduk asserts that the first six lines of the poem include the acrostic I AM – YES – SO I.

You can read the entire essay in the link HERE (once on the site page, click on “PDF” to access the entire article).

Was this acrostic written deliberately by Dickinson?

I’m going to have to say … **drum roll** …yes! ; )

I suspect that at some point in an earlier version of myself I would have said no – but now I’m a believer in “deliberateness.” Why the transformation? Two whys and wherefores come to mind.

First, when I returned to school in my late thirties (or was it my early forties?) to pursue a Master’s degree in school administration, I remember that I submitted a paper in some class about “current issues in education” (I can’t recall the exact name of the class or the exact topic for the paper), and I deliberately submitted a twenty-six paragraph essay where each paragraph started with a different letter – in alphabetical order. I was just trying to incorporate some creativity (and fun) into my coursework.

The work was serious, scholarly – not silly – but I injected playfulness. If I remember correctly, I believe I was in the Ed School library doing research on the topic, and I saw one author’s reference to the “three Rs” and the “ABCs,” and a lightbulb flashed above my head. The ABCs. Why not?

Second, I used to think that the inclusion of “la” and “le,” two singular French articles, in E. E. Cummings’ poem “l(a” was purely coincidental. No more. I now believe their inclusion was deliberate. I wrote about this topic HERE.

I concluded that particular post with my newly adopted mantra “There are no coincidences.”

So yeah, for someone at the level of genius as E. E. Cummings (with “l(a”) or Emily Dickinson (with “I dwell in possibility”), I believe that – with their command of and skillfulness with language and their desire to convey powerful messages in as succinct a way as possible (concerning Dickinson, Hejduk as “a poet of incarnation—of the small, concrete, and quotidian becoming a vessel for the infinite”) – and with that being so, there are no coincidences.

Is That A Fact

10/14/2024

Today’s #DickinsonDaily post has nothing to do with Emily Dickinson (although I do mention her once a little bit later on). Instead, today’s post is in celebration of E. E Cummings’ 130th birthday!

To celebrate Cummings I started with Google and typed in “what are some little known facts about E. E. Cummings.”

Six categories and facts popped up, but my first here today was not among them. I’m going to start with an obvious trivia question about the poet – and that is, what does E. E. stand for? Do you know?

E. E. stands for Edward Estlin.

Now here are the six categories/facts that popped up in Google (my comments are in parentheses).

1. Early life

Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 14, 1894. His father was a minister and professor at Harvard, where Cummings attended and earned his BA and MA.

2. Visual art

Cummings was a visual artist who continued to paint and draw throughout his life. (NOTE: A painting by Cummings hangs in the Whitney Museum of American Art – see below.)

3. Persona

The persona "ee cummings" was created by both Cummings and his readers. Cummings treated the persona with ambivalence and amusement, and there's no evidence that he intended to be known by that name. (That’s right – most scholars of the poet present his name as E. E. Cummings vs. “ee cummings”).

4. The "i"

Cummings's use of a lowercase "i" in his poetry was an expression of humility and childhood. He felt that the English language's capitalization of only the first-person pronoun was egotistical. (I was surprised that this one popped up as it is not a “little known fact.”)

5. Ambivalence

Cummings was ambivalent about his father and Harvard, casting off their earnestness, moralism, and Puritanism while still attending his father's university. (Of course, who did this sound like to me – but Emily Dickinson.)

6. Advice to audiences

Before one of his plays, Cummings advised audiences to relax and let the work "strut its stuff". He wanted audiences to experience the work, rather than analyze or understand it.

For more information on Cummings, try the sites linked below.

New England Historical Society: Seven Fun Facts About E. E. Cummings

Kids Encyclopedia Facts:
E. E. Cummings Facts
for Kids

The Poetry Foundation: Information on Poet
E. E. Cummings

Tanvir's Blog:
E. E. Cummings
Quick Facts

The E. E. Cummings
Society Blog:

Plog (Poetry Blog)
Posts from the
ELD Museum Site:

They Say It's Your Birthday...

10/3/2024

I’m coming up on two years of #DickinsonDaily posts (on CounterSocial), and I’ve kept a log on all the topics I’ve covered, so I looked back on 10/3/23 to see if I posted any Dickinson “birthday” poems – not in celebration of her birthday (hers is in December) but in observance of mine! LOL!

Turns out, no – I didn’t post anything about my birthday. Instead, last October I began a multi-day look at the torrid love affair between Dickinson’s brother Austin and the much-younger Mabel Loomis Todd, the wife of an Amerherst College professor.

This year l decided to focus on a more cheerful topic, but to be honest, the two poems by Dickinson which include the word “birthday” are not really cheerful at all.

The first, “One year ago – jots what?” looks back on the anniversary of a past romance – and take a look at the start of that fifth stanza:

If to be “Elder”— mean most pain--
I’m old enough, today

LOL – well that seems appropriate for me today!

The other poem, “Birthday of but a single pang,” was sent to her sister-in-large Susan on her fiftieth birthday:

Birthday of but a single pang
That there are less to come -
Afflictive is the Adjective
But affluent the doom -

Well, now, isn’t that a pleasant thought – LOL – but, alas, a true one (the letter/poem in Dickinson’s own handwriting can be seen HERE).

Okay, so not every birthday thought from Dickinson is gloom and doom. She wrote this line in a letter to her cousin, Louise Norcross:

“We turn not older with years, but newer every day.”

(LOL – I find it hard to believe how new I am today.)

The letter includes this short poem, and the complete letter can be found HERE.

A word left careless on a page
May consecrate an eye,
When folded in perpetual seam
The wrinkled author lie.

Another of my favorite poets is E. E. Cummings. He too has a birthday coming up – on October 14th. Here’s a much more cheerful take on birthdays from Cummings:

your birthday comes to tell me this

–each luckiest of lucky days
i've loved,shall love,do love you,was

and will be and my birthday is

I’ll have more about Cummings later in the month!

For now, I'm going to turn my attention to this cinnamon roll that is as big as my head.