I swear, I think if you polled every high schooler in the U.S. their favorite poet would be e.e. cummings. Because his poetry is graspable. Because his poetry is unique in the sense that he uses little capitalization and hardly any punctuation. Which is not to say that is isn't great. He's not my personal favorite though I do like this particular poem even though it's not very pleasant.
It's the only political poem I know of. Like many e.e. cummings poems this poem uses parentheses creatively. It tells a story and I do love a good story. I wonder when this poem was published. It seems like a Vietnam War poem, though I don't have specifics why I think so. Something about the phrase "conscientious object-or."
Favorite line: "unless statistics lie he was/more brave than me:more blond than you."
Thursday, October 15, 2009
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I like the poem, and Cummings, though I'm a long time past high school. It's not a Vietnam era piece, though, but a result of World War I--I think it was published in 1931. Cummings served in France as a volunteer ambulance driver, but was imprisoned at the end of the war by the French government because of statements made by one of his compatriots. He wrote an interesting memoir about it, _The Enormous Room_, which is available on the internet if you're interested--it's out of copyright.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this comment! I would not have guessed that this poem was that old - WWI! It sounds so modern.
ReplyDeleteI will definitely check out 'The Enormous Room'. Thanks for recommending it to me. It seems that so many famous writers were volunteer ambulance drivers at some point in their lives.
Thanks again for commenting!