e.e. cummings

Let’s spend some time puzzling-out this poem by Edward Estlin Cummings, [also known as e e cummings] (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright, often regarded as one of the most important American poets of the 20th century.

Cummings is associated with modernist free-form poetry. Much of his work has idiosyncratic syntax and uses lower-case spellings for poetic expression.

When My Love Comes To See Me It’s [87]

when my love comes to see me it’s
just a little like music,a
little more like curving colour(say
orange)
          against silence,or darkness….

the coming of my love emits
a wonderful smell in my mind,

you should see when i turn to find
her how my least heart-beat becomes less.
And then all her beauty is a vise

whose stilling lips murder suddenly me,

but of my corpse the tool her smile makes something
suddenly luminous and precise

—and then we are I and She….

what is that the hurdy-gurdy’s playing

 --e. e. cummings