e. e. cummings (1894-1962) engl 3370: modern american poetry
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e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings
[Artists are those] who have discovered (in a mirror surrounded with mirrors) something harder than silence but softer than falling, the third voice of "life" which believes itself and which cannot mean because it is.e. e. cummings, six non-lectures
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings the painter
fourth-dimensional abstractionOil on canvasboard
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings the painter
Flowers and Hat: Patchen Place, c. 1950, oil on canvas,
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings the painter
Noise Number 1, 1919, oil on canvas,
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings the painter
lone figure and tree in stormy sunsetOil on canvas
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings the painter
Self-portrait with sketchpad, 1939, oil on canvas,
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Oil City High School (demolished in 1967)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “in Just-”
in Just-spring when the world is mud-luscious the little lame baloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddyandbill comerunning from marbles andpiracies and it’sspring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queerold baloonman whistlesfar and weeand bettyandisbel come dancing
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “in Just-”
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’sspringandthegoat-footed
baloonMan whistlefarandwee
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “next to of course god america”
"next to of course god america Ilove you land of the pilgrims' and so forth ohsay can you see by the dawn's early mycountry tis of centuries come and goand are no more what of it we should worryin every language even deafanddumbthy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorryby jingo by gee by gosh by gumwhy talk of beauty what could be more beaut-iful than these heroic happy deadwho rushed like lions to the roaring slaughterthey did not stop to think they died insteadthen shall the voice of liberty be mute?”
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “next to of course god america”
Boosterism
Oil City High School Rotarians, 1966-1967
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “Buffalo Bill’s”
Buffalo Bill 'sdefunct who used to ride a watersmooth-silver stallionand break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat Jesus he was a handsome man and what i want to know ishow do you like your blueeyed boyMister Death?
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “the Cambridge ladies”
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished soulsare unbeautiful and have comfortable minds(also, with the church's protestant blessingsdaughters, unscented shapeless spirited)they believe in Christ and Longfellow,both dead,are invariably interested in so many things-at the present writing one still findsdelighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandyscandal of Mrs. N and Professor D....the Cambridge ladies do not care,aboveCambridge if sometimes in its box ofsky lavender and cornerless, themoon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “she being Brand”
she being Brand-new;and youknow consequently alittle stiff i wascareful of her and(havingthoroughly oiled the universaljoint tested my gas felt ofher radiator made sure her springs were O.K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked herup,slipped theclutch(and then somehow got into reverse shekicked whatthe hell)nextminute i was back in neutral tried andagain slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing (mylev-er Right-oh and her gears being inA 1 shape passedfrom low throughsecond-in-to-high likegrasedlightning
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “she being Brand”
just as we turned the corner of Divinityavenue i touched the accelerator and giveher the juice,good(itwas the first ride and believe i we washappy to see how nice she acted right up tothe last minute coming back down by the PublicGardens i slammed ontheinternalexpanding&externalcontractingbrakes Bothatonce andbrought allofher tremB-lingto a:dead.stand-;Still)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
Necker’s Cube
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “somewhere I have never travelled”
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyondany 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 methough 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 andmy life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,as when the heart of this flower imaginesthe snow carefully everywhere descending;
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “somewhere I have never travelled”
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equalsthe power of your intense fragility:whose texturecompels me with the color of its countries,rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closesand opens;only something in me understandsthe voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “I thank You God”
i thank You God for most this amazingday:for the leaping greenly spirits of treesand a blue true dream of sky;and for everythingwhich is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birthday of life and love and wings: and of the gaygreat happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeingbreathing any-lifted from the noof all nothing-human merely beingdoubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake andnow the eyes of my eyes are opened)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “O sweet spontaneous”
O sweet spontaneousearth how often havethe doting
fingers ofprurient philosophies pinchedand poked
theehas the naughty thumbof science proddedthy
beauty howoften have religions takenthee upon their scraggyknees squeezing and
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “O sweet spontaneous”
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceivegodsbuttrue
to the incomparablecouch of death thyrhythmiclover
thou answerest
them only with
spring
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry