selected poems of e. e. cummings

e. e. commings poetry is possibly not everyone's cup of tea, and his odd use of punctuation and even odder syntax certainly mean that he isn't the easiest poet. I find some of his poems incredibly irritating but at his best, he wrote amazingly beautiful poems. This small selection of his work (selected by the poet from his work between 1923 - 58) includes some wonderful poetry, including a lot of poems about Spring.

Most of these poems don't have titles, which makes quoting from them more difficult, but this is from p7 and probably illustrates equally both the wonder and irritation of his work:

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of  Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look


and this, from p 67 is, even if it might not make the strictest sense, just full of the joy of Spring:

(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in
are winging in the blossoming)

e. e. cummings is considered one of the most innovative poets in the English language and is well worth reading. He experimented with great verve, though he also wrote a surprising amount of formal verse (though mostly formal verse with a good few twists to it) as here from p84:

in time of daffodils (who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so (forgetting when)


Formal or experimental, his poetry always buzzes with the joy of language and the joy of nature.

e. e. cummings: selected poems 1923 - 1958 published by Faber and Faber