e. e. cummings
e. e. cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings, known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e e cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. He is remembered as an eminent voice of 20th century English literature...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth14 October 1894
CityCambridge, MA
CountryUnited States of America
Your poems are rather hard to understand, whereas your paintings are so easy. Easy? Of course - you paint flowers and girls and sunsets; things that everybody understands. I never met him. Who? Everybody. Did you ever hear of nonrepresentational painting? I am. Pardon me? I am a painter, and painting is nonrepresentational. Not all painting. No: housepainting is representational. And what does a housepainter represent? Ten dollars an hour. In other words, you don't want to be serious - It takes two to be serious.
mr youse needn't be so spry concernin questions arty each has his tastes but as for i i likes a certain party gimme the he-man's solid bliss for youse ideas i'll match youse a pretty girl who naked is is worth a million statues
dive for dreams or a slogan may topple you (trees are their roots and wind is wind) trust your heart if the seas catch fire (and live by love though the stars walk backward) honour the past but welcome the future (and dance your death away at this wedding) never mind a world with its villains or heroes (for god likes girls and tomorrow and the earth)
A pretty girl who is naked / is worth a million statues
you said Is there anything which is dead or alive more beautiful than my body,to have in your fingers (trembling ever so little)? Looking into your eyes Nothing,i said,except the air of spring smelling of never and forever. ....and through the lattice which moved as if a hand is touched by a hand(which moved as though fingers touch a girl's breast, lightly) Do you believe in always,the wind said to the rain I am too busy with my flowers to believe,the rain answered
Who knows if the moon's a balloon, coming out of a keen city in the sky filled with pretty people?
I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.
maggie and millie and molly and may"maggie and millie and molly and maywent down to the beach (to play one day)and maggie discovered a shell that sangso sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,andmillie befriended a stranded starwho's rays five languid fingers were;and molly was chased by a horrible thingwhich raced sideways while blowing bubbles:andmay came home with a smooth round stoneas small as a world and as large as alone.For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)it's always ourselves we find in the sea.
To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.
Well, write poetry, for God's sake, it's the only thing that matters.
The three saddest things are the ill wanting to be well, the poor wanting to be rich, and the constant traveler saying 'anywhere but here'.
It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.
Lessons hide in his wrinkles. Bells ding in the oldness of eyes. Did he by, any chance, tell children that there are such monstrous things as peace and goodwill...a corrupter of youth no doubt...
A world of made is not a world of born