One of the only poems by Cummings I can still stand goes something like this:
If you can't eat you got to
smoke and we aint got
nothing to smoke:come on kid
let's go to sleep
if you can't smoke you got to
Sing and we aint got
nothing to sing;come on kid
let's go to sleep
if you can't sing you got to
die and we aint got
nothing to die,come on kid
let's go to sleep
if you can't die you got to
dream and we aint got
nothing to dream(come on kid
Let's go to sleep)
I'll have to clean up the text once I get the book from which it comes.
6 comments:
How about "mr u will not be missed"? I had sort of forgotten Cummings, but saw that mentioned somewhere (maybe by Leithauser). Tightly carpentered.
That was Louis Untermeyer, right? He put himself in his own anthologies. I rememeber missed rhymed with "anthologist"
mr u will not be missed
who as an anthologist
sold the many on the few
not excluding mr u
Leithauser (pretty sure it was he) pointed out the fertile ambiguity of the third line, also "Mister, you will not be missed." And yes, Untermeyer (I remember being proud to have figured that out without notes).
I don't get the 3rd line. I get one meaning, but I don't get its ambiguity.
Persuaded the many readers that the few poets were interesting; or sold the many worthless poets to the few readers. You can't really read it both ways at once -- don't remember which of the seven types that is. And with the first reading, you get an extra ambiguity -- the point is either that Untermeyer included himself in the book, or that he fooled himself along with his readers.
Ok. I'd only gotten the first reading there.
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