E. E. Cummings

Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), typically abbreviated E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, and playwright. Though a representation not endorsed by him, his publishers often mirrored his atypical syntax by writing his name in lower case, e. e. cummings.

Cummings' poetic style

As well as being influenced by notable modernists including Stein and Pound, Cummings early work drew upon the imagist experiments of Amy Lowell. Later his visits to Paris exposed him to Dada and surrealism, which in turn permeated his work.

Related Topics:
Modernists - Imagist - Amy Lowell - Dada - Surrealism

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While some of his poetry is free verse (with no concern for rhyme and scansion), many of his poems have a recognizable sonnet structure of 14 lines, with an intricate rhyme scheme. A number of his poems feature a typographically exuberant style, with words, parts of words, or punctuation symbols scattered across the page, often making little sense until read aloud—at which point the meaning and emotion become clear. As a painter, Cummings understood the importance of presentation, and used typography to "paint a picture" with some of his poems.{{ref|Landles}}

Related Topics:
Free verse - Rhyme - Scansion - Sonnet

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In addition, a number of Cummings' poems feature in part or in whole intentional misspellings; several feature phonetic spellings intended to represent particular dialects. Cummings also made use of inventive formations of compound words, as in "in Just-", which features words such as "mud-lucious" and "puddle-wonderful".

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Many of Cummings' poems address social issues and satirize society, but have an equal or even stronger bias toward romanticism: time and again his poems celebrate love, sex and spring. His talent extended to children's books, novels, and painting. A notable example of his versatility is an Introduction he wrote for a collection of the comic strip Krazy Kat.

Related Topics:
Introduction - Comic strip - Krazy Kat

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An example of Cummings' unorthodox typographical style can be seen in his poems "the sky was candy luminous..." and "a leaf falls loneliness".

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