Sometimes it’s very difficult to avoid being at least one of these. Didn’t Roethke marry an ex-student?Quote:
Originally Posted by blp
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Sometimes it’s very difficult to avoid being at least one of these. Didn’t Roethke marry an ex-student?Quote:
Originally Posted by blp
That's more than I know about him. I'd say there's a certain amount of longing that goes beyond the elegiac here though.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
since feeling is first by e.e. cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
Hmm, I'm not sure I like it, partially because of the lack of a period at the end.
Jay, could you explain the poem for me? Could you possibly give me a rough paraphrase of that last line? Isn’t “kisses are a far better fate / than wisdom” the philosophy of a bimbo, of one who ‘flutters’ her eyelids?
How strange these things are. I like it because of the lack of a period.Quote:
Originally Posted by chmpman
"since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things"
"for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis"
If there had been one, ee cummings would have contradicted the point he makes, wouldn´t he?
I thought I was pedantic! I think that the fact that he chose to write his name 'e.e. cummings' tells us his views on punctuation.Quote:
Originally Posted by chmpman
I think not. I think he is probably indulging in hyperbole to emphasise the lure of the aesthetically pleasing and living for the day; perhaps suggesting that taking life too seriously can lead to a lack of joy?. Wisdom is great, but 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever' and all that?Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
I like it. I never saw this cummings poem before. Might over time become my favorite. I would paraphrase the poem as it's more important to live life in the blood (a D.H. Lawrence term!) than in the mind. "my blood approves".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay
What a beautiful poem! I want to read more e.e. cummings now.
Brrr. I love cummings at his best, but he's only a short step away from bullying with this kind of simplistic, proto-hippie anti-intellectualism. Pay no attention, kids. Syntax is important!
I think you're right, and I was attempting to be blatantly pedantic. On first reading I just didn't see the gravity of the poem, after a closer reading, it's a little better, but not a favorite of mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Isagel
Since there aren't many of us who are willing to post poems daily, I think we will change the rules to have more flexibility:
'Same person cannot post poems within 5 days.'
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters, unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow,both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things-
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
....the Cambridge ladies do not care,above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
by E. E. Cummings
I love the closing lines:
Very pretty. But frankly I have no idea what this poem is about. For the non-Americans, there is a Cambridge in Massachusetts.Quote:
....the Cambridge ladies do not care,above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
And it is where Harvard is, isn't it? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Whether British or American, they are both university towns. :)Quote:
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D