when the world is puddle-wonderful
When I first read the modernists I was a junior in high school, and I pretty much feel for T.S. Eliot right away (my very first experience with Thomas Stearns was, interestingly enough, a Stephen King novel, but that's a story for another time). Anyway, I was really drawn to his poetry -- that, and I though his borderline pedantry to be exactly the kind of thing I wished to emulate in real life. Yeah, I was a cool kid. I passed my time by thinking of different ways to make myself feel superior to everyone else. Anyway, I really liked Eliot and, by extension, Ezra Pound, who is basically that unwanted extra bag of potato chips that comes with your meal that no one actually wants because they're toxic, but you have to take anyway.
Okay. Maybe things don't really work like that, but you get the idea.
The thing is I was fascinated by Eliot and, by a lesser extent, Pound. I really had nothing but disdain for the American modernists (Eliot and Pound are both considered European, despite the fact that they were American born and bred, because history is weird like that). I hated William Carlos Williams passionately, and if I had to read that red wheelbarrow poem one more time I was going to scream. Similarly, Cummings was a pretentious no-talent hack and Robert Frost was about as interesting as the carpet of my dorm room. Looking back, I think part of my dislike of the American modernists was an expectation that poetry needs be a certain way. Eliot wrote poetry like poetry was supposed to be. Frost wrote about dead babies and picking apples. I mean, honestly.
Now, I have to say I think E.E. Cummings is my favorite of who we've read. I really like his sense of experimentation, but I also really like his playfulness. He's clever and witty and original while also managing to write at least half of his poetry in sonnets, and he has an amazing way of describing things. Also, and this is what is really important, he writes sexy. To wit:
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you quite so new
I love how simplistic yet gorgeous this poem is. There's a real sense of wonder and intimacy. It also is, I think, one of the most romantic poems I've read (as with many other things, my idea of romanticism is somewhat unconventional). There's some kind of honesty, a lack of conceit if you will, event though the poem has a bunch of weird spaces and captials and is quite ~edgy~ in appearance. Another thing I like about Cummings is how clever he can be:
"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
The poem is particularly interesting from a rhetorical perspective, but really, I just enjoy how Cummings highlights all of the problems with patriotism without having to shove it in your face at all. I could cite more examples, but I'm sure this would bore you. Basically, Cummings is like clean, fresh air on bright summer day -- that's the mood his work always puts me in.
All of this isn't to say that I hate Eliot or Pound, which would be untrue. I still adore Eliot, and I think is poetry is beautiful -- polyphonic interweavings, encompassing multitudes and all of the history that has come before &c. &c. I love it. But I've also started to love also the American modernists. Really, I have a fantastic class with the best professor I think I've ever had, and I just can't help but be enthusiastic about all of it.
Okay. Maybe things don't really work like that, but you get the idea.
The thing is I was fascinated by Eliot and, by a lesser extent, Pound. I really had nothing but disdain for the American modernists (Eliot and Pound are both considered European, despite the fact that they were American born and bred, because history is weird like that). I hated William Carlos Williams passionately, and if I had to read that red wheelbarrow poem one more time I was going to scream. Similarly, Cummings was a pretentious no-talent hack and Robert Frost was about as interesting as the carpet of my dorm room. Looking back, I think part of my dislike of the American modernists was an expectation that poetry needs be a certain way. Eliot wrote poetry like poetry was supposed to be. Frost wrote about dead babies and picking apples. I mean, honestly.
Now, I have to say I think E.E. Cummings is my favorite of who we've read. I really like his sense of experimentation, but I also really like his playfulness. He's clever and witty and original while also managing to write at least half of his poetry in sonnets, and he has an amazing way of describing things. Also, and this is what is really important, he writes sexy. To wit:
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you quite so new
I love how simplistic yet gorgeous this poem is. There's a real sense of wonder and intimacy. It also is, I think, one of the most romantic poems I've read (as with many other things, my idea of romanticism is somewhat unconventional). There's some kind of honesty, a lack of conceit if you will, event though the poem has a bunch of weird spaces and captials and is quite ~edgy~ in appearance. Another thing I like about Cummings is how clever he can be:
"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
The poem is particularly interesting from a rhetorical perspective, but really, I just enjoy how Cummings highlights all of the problems with patriotism without having to shove it in your face at all. I could cite more examples, but I'm sure this would bore you. Basically, Cummings is like clean, fresh air on bright summer day -- that's the mood his work always puts me in.
All of this isn't to say that I hate Eliot or Pound, which would be untrue. I still adore Eliot, and I think is poetry is beautiful -- polyphonic interweavings, encompassing multitudes and all of the history that has come before &c. &c. I love it. But I've also started to love also the American modernists. Really, I have a fantastic class with the best professor I think I've ever had, and I just can't help but be enthusiastic about all of it.