Poem of the Week '10

Ya, I think I've read somewhere that Cummings was heavily influenced by Cubism in art, and the dadaist like Gertrude Stein, so there's a certain intentional lack of obvious coherence to it.

I think Virgil's reading is pretty good, to add to what he's said, its interesting how that sort of refrain seems to shift scales, from seasons, to celestial bodies, to individual desires. I'm not sure there's anything to that.

Another interesting thing Cummings does in this poem is that the refrain disappears for a bit in the 7th and 8th stanzas, as the speaker goes on about the death of "anyone," instead of seasons we get "earth" and "spirit," sorta emphasizing that finality of death, it encompasses everything. Then in the last stanza he brings us back to the 2nd stanza by repeating the "Women and Men" and going on to repeat both of the main refrains, this seems to emphasize that sense of people wasting their life in triviality, and maybe it undermines how grand and final death really is if people just go on with their triviality after you die..

I think I partly agree with Virgil here. Certainly at first glance anyway. I hesitate to conclude that it lacks depth, though. I think being playful and cute is more a vehicle than the object of the poem. For me it's more a matter of taste.

Could someone explain to me why the order of the seasons was changed? Is it just for the effect of creating movement of time, or is there significance to the particular orders.

Ps. Is it just me or did this thread need a touch of controversy to thrive? ;)

Ah, it’s been ages since I read a cummings poem and I’ve not read many by him at all.

Anyway, looking at this poem quickly, I would agree that just because he uses a simplistic, almost child-like voice here, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the poem carries any less depth because of it. It may be true that as a whole his work doesn’t, I don’t know, but just going from this poem it seems to carry something of depth.

In answer to why the poem shifts the seasons, perhaps this is just another way to visually express the passing of time?

I think that it could be argued that the poet here is expressing something about the need to return to a child-like way of viewing the world, to wonder and to see the world afresh or at least to see and understand the shortness of it. It seems to lament how people are blind to the things around them as they carry on sowing and reaping (in other words of course the daily grind). The line about the children who as they grow up forget “down they forgot as up they grew” merely shows a continuation of this.

I like the second line “(with up so floating many bells down)” and get the strong impression of a little village church with the bells ringing out on a Sunday and the people going about their daily lives, it is a pleasant image that the poem later laments when we return to the bells in the lines “Women and men(both dong and ding)”. Here he seems to be comparing the ringing to the passing of life, the brevity of it perhaps?

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Originally Posted by Regit

Or maybe he just wanted to turn words into blocks of sounds so that he can rearrange them into something like a song?

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I agree with you to a certain degree but we cannot disregard the fact that Cummings does not pick random words or make up new ones such as "jabberwocky" like Carroll did. I cannot help wondering why it is "anyone" or "noone" are chosen by him to deliver his message in this poem.

It is almost touching in my opinion: He is "anyone" (could be anyone of us?) and he is loved by no one... And guess what? "Noone" does love him!

So sweet! :goof:

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I'm not a big fan of cummings, mainly because there is no reason that I can see other than ideosyncratic play for the word order. It's fun, it's cute, but I don't find depth to it.

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Say it ain't so!

Many ideas/emotions are discussed and explored by many poets over and over again. I think the poets who deliver their messages with the most original means are the most memorable and unique ones.

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In addition, the emotions and desires seem relatively trivial and petty and it seems that the characters seem to miss the importance of life.

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My interpretation is that it is our presence in this world that is trivial actually and we assume/pretend it is significant and somehow we matter... Worry about trivialities but these are nothing compared to those things that are permanent (sun and moon etc). I think the casual way he mentions the death of "anyone" is an indication of this:

one day anyone died i guess

No shock, no mourning, no tragedy: "Busy folks" carry on with their own lives; even the poem does not end there.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

this seems to emphasize that sense of people wasting their life in triviality, and maybe it undermines how grand and final death really is if people just go on with their triviality after you die..

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Again, I am not sure if that is what Cummings is getting at. Our existence does not mean much... Nor does our death.

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Originally Posted by Neely

I think that it could be argued that the poet here is expressing something about the need to return to a child-like way of viewing the world, to wonder and to see the world afresh or at least to see and understand the shortness of it. It seems to lament how people are blind to the things around them as they carry on sowing and reaping (in other words of course the daily grind). The line about the children who as they grow up forget “down they forgot as up they grew” merely shows a continuation of this.

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I also agree with this. There is a kind of a sadness in the way human activities and futility of it all are described. We are so self-deluded that we believe what we do matters.

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Originally Posted by Regit

Could someone explain to me why the order of the seasons was changed? Is it just for the effect of creating movement of time, or is there significance to the particular orders.

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I think it signifies the permanency of the natural order and system; no matter from which angle you look at it, things keep moving in a certain order without failing, regardless of what happens in the human-created world.

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Ps. Is it just me or did this thread need a touch of controversy to thrive? ;)

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Controvery is always good (so are a little advertisement, bribery and nagging :p).

Great stuff Scher, I must say. I fear that I agree with your comments on this poem. Also, not to knock dear old Virgil, but it seems that there are plenty of 'meaty' things to discuss here with this one (though I accept that the fellow may have been speaking generally).

I like in particular the idea of "noone" and "someone" as if he is referring generally to all of us, humankind, not just one or two individuals - he's observing us all here! “Women and men (both little and small)” who “cared for anyone not at all” which is rather bleak, but actually true at the same time as we are so caught up in our little worlds we often forget or overstep our own importance.

One of the strongest lines for me in the piece is “busy folk buried them side by side” I mean gosh - quick burial and then move on back to the reaping and sowing, sadly true??? :(

Well I don't think the poem gives us any direct evidence to think that there isn't a nihilistic tendency in all of this. Cummings himself was a pretty devout Christian, and just from that fact I'm inclined to think he is criticizing the superficiality of the day to day lives of people, but he's not necessarily saying it's all hopeless. There is something sad in this poem, probably reinforced by the anonymity and the curt treatment of death. What that sense of sadness arises from, I think, is the fact that Cummings relies on the reader's response of certain sacred ideas, that life should matter.

Just my own reactions. I share a few perceptions with that of others. I think this poem is beautiful and while it is sad,it is happy too. It describes life and death as a natural process like the seasons, and night and day.
'with up so floating many bells down' seems to me to be heaven above (or even just the clouds), with churches below.
'anyone' is, according to the way I read it, no one is particular, and in this sense may also be 'someone' or 'everyone'. For 'anyone' 'sang his didn't he danced his did', just as women and men 'sowed their isn't they reaped their same', and 'someones and everyones' 'laughed their cryings and did their dance'. 'noone stooped to kiss his face' whether or not someone actually did, for in the sense of the natural movement of the seasons it may have been as if noone was there, and the dead person wouldn't know anyway.
'busy folk buried them side by side/ little by little and was by was' doesn't seem at all negative. People have to move on with things. And the 'little' matches the 'little and small' referring to people in an earlier stanza, that people are little and small compared to the process of time and the seasons. They all are the 'were', and the other people are of course busy with their own lives, naturally. The cycle of the seasons goes on, and the cycle of the sun and moon. Pleasure and sadness cycles through lives. It's sad, but it's happy too.There are cycles to all life and the natural world.
Perhaps the snow refers to the piling up of time. In another poem 'Somewhere I have never travelled' Cummings seems to link snow with death.
Just a few thoughts.

Maybe the 'cared for anyone not at all' is caring for a particular group, but not the all.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

... to add to what he's said, its interesting how that sort of refrain seems to shift scales, from seasons, to celestial bodies, to individual desires. I'm not sure there's anything to that.

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Yes, and I think he's after a universal scope by doing that, creating a feeling that our lives are part of a cosmic whole.

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Originally Posted by Regit

Could someone explain to me why the order of the seasons was changed? Is it just for the effect of creating movement of time, or is there significance to the particular orders.

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Two reasons that I see. First the obvious, for the rhyme. Second it creates a sense of movement of time. Don't you think?

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Ps. Is it just me or did this thread need a touch of controversy to thrive? ;)

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We can satisfy that if you want. :p

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Originally Posted by Neely

I think that it could be argued that the poet here is expressing something about the need to return to a child-like way of viewing the world, to wonder and to see the world afresh or at least to see and understand the shortness of it. It seems to lament how people are blind to the things around them as they carry on sowing and reaping (in other words of course the daily grind). The line about the children who as they grow up forget “down they forgot as up they grew” merely shows a continuation of this.

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Good point. I do agree that the word play in his best poems seem to urge us to return childhood. It reminds me of JD Salinger in the sense that they both Romanticize childhood.

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

It is almost touching in my opinion: He is "anyone" (could be anyone of us?) and he is loved by no one... And guess what? "Noone" does love him!

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I agree. The lack of a specific identity universalizes the events.

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So sweet! :goof:Say it ain't so!

Many ideas/emotions are discussed and explored by many poets over and over again. I think the poets who deliver their messages with the most original means are the most memorable and unique ones.

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I'm not saying he's a poor poet. He's a good poet, but I couldn't include him in the great poets of the century. He's no Yeats, Eliot or Stevens.

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My interpretation is that it is our presence in this world that is trivial actually and we assume/pretend it is significant and somehow we matter... Worry about trivialities but these are nothing compared to those things that are permanent (sun and moon etc). I think the casual way he mentions the death of "anyone" is an indication of this:

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I think that's a really good reading. :)

To me, the e.e. cummings poem is a poem of pattern, pair, opposite, and associative language. It uses these elements to create a pseudo-narrative, but I don't think the devices used are exact enough to be called a code. Organization is achieved by the use of rhyme and repeated lines. So, the form is very important. You also have what I will call "voices" that come in as interruptions/overtones, but not everyone may see this--it could be only me, because I see the poem as so associative. Also, certain repetitions work in various ways. You can read "noone" in more than one way at different points in the poem. Let me give some examples.

In Line 1, we have the first strange bit, "pretty how town". As already mentioned, "how" acts as an adjective here. But I kind of hear it also as, "how pretty". So you get this echoing voice or overtone, or associative voice saying "how pretty", which is exactly how the town is being described.
Then you have in Line 4, two uses of opposites, the first use of opposites or pairs: sang/danced and didn't/did.
In the next stanza, he begins with the pairing of women and men, but surprises us with the pairing of little and small. Normally with "both" before them we would expect little and big. It's interesting because "big" is kind of an off rhyme with "did". Also, the use of "both" makes you think of the meaning of both. Both usually is used with two different things, but isn't it kind of true that you can be both smart and intelligent? Or beautiful and lovely? So what is "both", really? Then the stanza completes with, the pairing of sowed/reaped and isn't/same. Maybe "isn't" is not a logical pairing, but with the possessive "their" proceeding it, one can kind of make a jump and see that "their isn't" is not the same. It's something unlike them. Not theirs.
The next stanza begins with children, which kind of plays off of "women and men" in the last stanza, as a pair. The parents, "women and men" didn't care for anyone, but the children see something they do not--the budding romance of anyone and noone. The pairing line in this stanza doesn't work like some of the others. You have down/up as a pair but then you play off of up to get "grow up". And he's given forgetting a direction, which we don't normally associate with it, but in some odd way, to me it makes sense that you would forget down...down into the subconscious, back in the memories?

I could go through the rest of the poem, but it would end up being a huge post. But I will say that "noone" is used to represent a person, and also...is just noone. So, "anyone" either died loving "noone" or anyone died with noone to love him. It's about the outsider, the mob mentality, differences and likenesses. Hopefully I don't sound drunk.

anyone lived in a pretty how town

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain


e.e. cummings


Posting the poem again to be able to follow the discussion more easily.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

he is criticizing the superficiality of the day to day lives of people, but he's not necessarily saying it's all hopeless.

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I agree with you that he is criticising the superficiality of the life but I cannot see any indication of hope in this poem suggested by the poet himself. Can you point out where in the poem you can see this, please?

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Originally Posted by Silas Thorne

'busy folk buried them side by side/ little by little and was by was' doesn't seem at all negative.

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It is not a negative thing and, yes, people do need to move on; however, it is sad considering the effort humanbeings put into their life and they are forgotten as soon as they die as if they have not been there at all... That life goes on with or without us just the same.

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Originally Posted by shortstoryfan

In Line 1, we have the first strange bit, "pretty how town". As already mentioned, "how" acts as an adjective here. But I kind of hear it also as, "how pretty". So you get this echoing voice or overtone, or associative voice saying "how pretty", which is exactly how the town is being described.

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Personally speaking, I love Cummings' first lines... He manages to capture his readers and I like the "how pretty" association you mention.

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But I will say that "noone" is used to represent a person, and also...is just noone. So, "anyone" either died loving "noone" or anyone died with noone to love him. It's about the outsider, the mob mentality, differences and likenesses.

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Enjoyed reading your analysis of pairings in the poem, SSF.

In my opinion, however, Cumming is using the story of "anyone" and "noone" to remind us that we are nothing more than "anyone" and "noone"- even though we might like to think differently - rather than telling a story of an outsider.

Yes, I agree with a few others, and with your point here, Sher, it does actually seem as if the poet is saying there's no real significance to life apart from life itself. Everyone's life is full of dancing, laughter, tears, hopes and grief, but ultimately it all ends in death and everything moves on as it always has done, hence the return to 'reaped their sowing and went their came'.
This 'reaping their sowing' on one level refers to the actual fruit of their efforts, but also seems to be 'what you sow so shall ye reap', I think ,people get what they deserve in life. If this is the case, there may be hope in this. Perhaps what they 'reap' is heaven? 'Went their came' is another version of 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'.
I agree with shortstoryfan on this 'pretty how town' line. As at the beginning I wanted to read it the line as 'pretty old town', I'm wondering if this is also a deliberate distortion too from 'pretty old' as time seems to have little real meaning in the human world of the poem.

I would like to thank everyone who has taken part in this discussion this week and it'd be great if someone else posted a new poem tomorrow for us to discuss and enjoy next week.

:)

Well I'll step up to the plate and post a controversial poem that most people won't be familiar with. For context, this is a poem written by one of the most prominent Canadian poets of the late 19th century. D.C. Scott is a very controversial figure, heavily influenced by American Transcendentalism, his poetry is notable as some of the first poems to depict native culture in detail, though there is still a touch of the Romanticized noble savage. What makes Scott particularly controversial is that he also served as the head of Department of Indian Affairs for the Canadian government and was involved in the forcible removal of children from native communities to assimilate them into Canadian culture. His poetry is condemned by some as outright racist and degrading, while others view it as an honest attempt at depicting a dying way of life.

Important for understanding this poem is that the second part depicts the Inuit practice of abandoning the sick on ice drifts, for the good of the community in a land of scarce resources.

The Forsaken by Duncan Campbell Scott

I
Once in the winter
Out on a lake
In the heart of the north-land,
Far from the Fort
And far from the hunters,
A Chippewa woman
With her sick baby,
Crouched in the last hours
Of a great storm.
Frozen and hungry,
She fished through the ice
With a line of the twisted
Bark of the cedar,
And a rabbit-bone hook
Polished and barbed;
Fished with the bare hook
All through the wild day,
Fished and caught nothing;
While the young chieftain
Tugged at her breasts,
Or slept in the lacings
Of the warm tikanagan.
All the lake-surface
Streamed with the hissing
Of millions of iceflakes
Hurled by the wind;
Behind her the round
Of a lonely island
Roared like a fire
With the voice of the storm
In the deeps of the cedars.
Valiant, unshaken,
She took of her own flesh,
Baited the fish-hook,
Drew in a gray-trout,
Drew in his fellows,
Heaped them beside her,
Dead in the snow.
Valiant, unshaken,
She faced the long distance,
Wolf-haunted and lonely,
Sure of her goal
And the life of her dear one:
Tramped for two days,
On the third in the morning,
Saw the strong bulk
Of the Fort by the river,
Saw the wood-smoke
Hand soft in the spruces,
Heard the keen yelp
Of the ravenous huskies
Fighting for whitefish:
Then she had rest.

II

Years and years after,
When she was old and withered,
When her son was an old man
And his children filled with vigour,
They came in their northern tour on the verge of winter,
To an island in a lonely lake.
There one night they camped, and on the morrow
Gathered their kettles and birch-bark
Their rabbit-skin robes and their mink-traps,
Launched their canoes and slunk away through the islands,
Left her alone forever,
Without a word of farewell,
Because she was old and useless,
Like a paddle broken and warped,
Or a pole that was splintered.
Then, without a sigh,
Valiant, unshaken,
She smoothed her dark locks under her kerchief,
Composed her shawl in state,
Then folded her hands ridged with sinews and corded with veins,
Folded them across her breasts spent with the nourishment of children,
Gazed at the sky past the tops of the cedars,
Saw two spangled nights arise out of the twilight,
Saw two days go by filled with the tranquil sunshine,
Saw, without pain, or dread, or even a moment of longing:
Then on the third great night there came thronging and thronging
Millions of snowflakes out of a windless cloud;
They covered her close with a beautiful crystal shroud,
Covered her deep and silent.
But in the frost of the dawn,
Up from the life below,
Rose a column of breath
Through a tiny cleft in the snow,
Fragile, delicately drawn,
Wavering with its own weakness,
In the wilderness a sign of the spirit,
Persisting still in the sight of the sun
Till day was done.
Then all light was gathered up by the hand of God and hid in His breast,
Then there was born a silence deeper than silence,
Then she had rest.

I'm curious to know what people think about the poem in terms of the story quality. It reads like prose. Part II seems more like a list of events. As one who is attempting to develop a deeper understanding of what does and doesn't work in poetry, I am not sure how to judge this on technical merit.

This is a powerful poem thematically.

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Originally Posted by jersea

I'm curious to know what people think about the poem in terms of the story quality. It reads like prose. Part II seems more like a list of events. As one who is attempting to develop a deeper understanding of what does and doesn't work in poetry, I am not sure how to judge this on technical merit.

This is a powerful poem thematically.

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I have a feeling that's the influence of Whitman on Scott's poetry. It is very much prosaic, though it does make use of a sort of repetition and I don't think the line breaks are entirely arbitrarily. I also think there's an attempt by Scott, in the first part especially, to take on a sort of Romanticized native perspective. The second part is certainly less, I suppose, "poetic." It seems to me as if it's deliberate, and I think it does have a sort of feel of a cold recitation of events.

Here's an excerpt from a Whitman poem:

"Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths."

I don't think you'd be alone, Jersea, in saying that you're not sure it entirely works as poetry. I think Whitman is a better poet than Scott, and pulls it off a bit better.

Edit: I think there's a deliberate oral quality to the poem, which I think is intentionally done to try and give it an "Indian" quality.