Ee Cummings Essay

The most influential writer of the modernist movement, Ezra Pound said: “Make it new”, and poet E.E. Cummings did just that. Cummings deliberately set out to make his poetry radically different than any other poet. He experimented with different ways to manipulate his typewriter to achieve different physical effects of his poems. Often not using punctuation, poem titles or conventional word usage, Cummings succeeded in making his poems stand out from other modernist poets of the 20th century. His most famous and well-loved poems are some of the most fun and unconventional poems I have ever come across.
One of Cummings most radically different poems is his poem that begins with “r-r-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r”, which at first glance looks like an early

In this poem the speaker is talking about Buffalo Bill who was a performer and soldier who became famous for his “Wild West” shows that he put on, and who Cummings would have been aware of. On the page the lines

“May I feel said he” uses parenthesis in a very fascinating, and effective way. In this poem there are two speakers, a male and a female. Lovers presumably. The parenthesis can be seen as distinguishing the male speaker from the female one, but their use is also sensual. Reading this poem on the page one doesn’t necessarily get this, but hearing this poem read aloud the reader can hear that the parenthesis can be taken as whispering. By using the parenthesis, Cummings is enhancing the sensual feelings of the poem. He’s inviting you into the couple’s private moment. The first use of the parenthesis is in the lines, “(i’ll squeal said she / just once said he)” (May I 2-3) in addition to being read as whispers, the parenthesis also function in making the lines playful. I found that Cummings’ choice to use only lower-case letters made me reading it in whispers as well, and the line, “but your wife said she” really emphasizes that. This lines reveals the secret of the poem, it reveals why they are whispering, and it’s such an effective technique on Cummings’ part. In the last line of the poem there appears one capitalized word in the line, “you are Mine said she” (May I 32), and up until this point the male reader has been the dominant speaker, but with the capitalization of “Mine” said by the female speaker the poem’s dominance shifts to the female