Poem...
so i'm going to put the explication of that cummings poem up here so everyone can fully apreciate the inguniety of it... I wish my explication of "pity this busy monster, manunkind" could be really awsome...
MAGIC ICONISM: ESOTERIC TRANSFORMATION
We saw with Apollinaire a hermetic and esoteric aspect to magic iconism. With Cumming’s, too, a certain amount of arcane knowledge e was needed to read both humming bird poems We now come to a poem that is so tightlipped and hermetic that I suspect most readers will need a key to unlock its mysteries and thus perform its magic In fact, I suggest that the reader attempt an interpretation before reading on to find out what Cummings had to say about it Here’s the poem:
the(oo)is
lOOk
(aliv
e)e
yes
are(chIld)and
wh(
o
ne)
o
w(A)a(M)s
Give up? Fortunately, Cumming’s has provided us with a key In the same letter in which he states that ‘not all of my poems are to be read aloud - some are to be seen & not heard’,45 Cumming’s provided the following explication:
… what at first impresses me as merely a pair of wide-open eyes,
‘the(oo)is’
becomes an intense stare
‘lOOk’
of alive eyes-which-say-yes
‘(aliv/e)e/yes’
belong in to a child who is(reminds me of)myself
‘are(chIld)and’
who’s one
‘wh( /o/ne)/o’
leaving me with the memory of his eyes
‘o o’
&,by becoming was instead of is(i e disappearing )at the same time
becoming -intensely(the am of)myself
‘w(A)a(M)s’
The horizontal o’s of lines one and two call forth the open and then staring eyes of the child which in lines 7 through 10 disappear into the poet’s memory [‘wh( /o/ne)/o’ - lines which contain the words ‘ one’, ‘one’, ‘o no’ and perhaps ‘neo’, implying that the poet sees through new eyes now that the boy’s eyes are a memory] This memory has transformed the boy’s eyes - they are now vertical, not horizontal as real (iconic) eyes should be But by operation of contagious magic (metonymy), the iconic eyes in lines 1 and 2 [‘the(oo)is // lOOk’] may represent both the poet and the child Similarly, the ‘aliv / e)e / yes’ of lines 3 through 5 are both those of ‘e)e’ the mature poet, and the ‘chIld’ whose capitalized ‘I’ is the poet’s long-lost childhood self And when the child is absent, ‘the memory of his eyes’ simultaneously becomes ‘was instead of is’ or past instead of present However, the ‘AM’ of the poet’s self remains capitalized and present on
the pa e The child’s eyes also remain present, if only through iconic means Once again, we have a calling-forth of the absent which is made present through iconism - the “was” and “am” are simultaneously present A magic transformation of identity also occurs, made possible by the cooperation of reader and author