brandon stolz, isabella brancifort, & jessi kruse
TRANSCRIPT
THE VISION OF E.E.
CUMMINGS
Brandon Stolz, Isabella Brancifort, & Jessi Kruse
COMMONALITIES Lower case Imagery Repetition Love
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
EARLY INSPIRATION
Farm Mother Longfellow Lowell
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."
MIDDLE LIFE
INSPIRATIONS
Ezra Pound French
detention camp First wife
"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
LATE LIFE INSPIRATIONS
Death of Parents
Marion Morehouse
Travels War
“I think very much the influence for me in poetry is poetry”
REOCCURRING THEMESNATURE, LOVE, LIFE
Where's Madge then,Madge and her men?buried withAlice in her hair,(but if you ask the rainhe'll not tell where.)beauty makes termswith time and his worms,when lovelinesssays sweetly Yesto wind and cold;and how much earthis Madge worth?Inquire of the flower that sways in the autumnshe will never guess.but i knowmy heart fell dead before.)
i carry your heart with me(i carry it inmy heart)i am never without it(anywherei go you go,my dear; and whatever is doneby only me is your doing,my darling)i fearno fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i wantno world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)and it's you are whatever a moon has always meantand whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the budand the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which growshigher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
THE POSITIVE CRITICS Bewildering, complex “the rule breaker, the grand
violator' of every accepted standard of poetical and grammatical structure, which make his poems stand out…”
Creates a puzzle “Cummings's ‘meaning’ habitually
lies in his playful manipulation”
WHAT WE THINK… “…the rule
breaker”Agree- Different- Unprecedented
“Creates a Puzzle”
Agree- hidden meanings- Intentional layoutDisagree- Grammar
confusing- Hard to
understand
NEGATIVE CRITICISM
- “Violates typographical norms only to be different…”(Kennedy, 8).
- Discombobulated- “…annoying modernist
gimmicks”(Friendman).- Confusing
WHAT WE THINK…
Too Different:Agree- No benefit- Confusing- Unnecessary
Vs. “…modernist
gimmicks”: Disagree - Distinguishes- Feeling/Mood
“POETRY IS WHAT’S DIFFERENT