Happy Birthday E.E. Cummings!

October 14 marks the birthday of American poet E.E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings (also spelled as e e cummings). Born in 1894, Cummings began writing poetry at the age of 8, developing a signature style of using grammar and syntax to give his work a distinct physical and oral shape which broke with poetic conventions of the time. After graduating from Harvard University, he worked for a book dealer and served in the US Army during World War I in the ambulance corps. Anti-war sentiments resulted in his spending three months in a detention camp, followed by a stint as a draftee in the army. He spent most of his life travelling and writing, and was the recipient of many literary awards as well as an honorary professorial seat at Harvard. He died on September 3, 1962. Read on for three of our favourites of his poems:
 
 
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands  
 
Suppose
suppose
Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.
young death sits in a café
smiling,a piece of money held between
his thumb and first finger
(i say “will he buy flowers” to you
and “Death is young
life wears velour trousers
life totters,life has a beard” i
say to you who are silent.—”Do you see
Life?he is there and here,
or that, or this
or nothing or an old man 3 thirds
asleep,on his head
flowers,always crying
to nobody something about les
roses les bluets
yes,
will He buy? Les belles bottes—oh hear
,pas chères”)
and my love slowly answered I think so. But
I think I see someone else
there is a lady,whose name is Afterwards
she is sitting beside young death,is slender;
likes flowers.  
 
When Life Is Quite Through With
when life is quite through with
and leaves say alas,
much is to do
for the swallow,that closes
a flight in the blue;
when love’s had his tears out,
perhaps shall pass
a million years
(while a bee dozes
on the poppies, the dears;
when all’s done and said,and
under the grass
lies her head
by oaks and roses
deliberated.)