Ok. So here's a test. I'll give myself 10 minutes and type all the Cummings poems I can remember (enough of their beginnings to identify them).
in just spring ... the little queer balloonman
I sing of Olaf
Mr u will not be missed
Buffalo Bill's / defunct who used to
I like my body when it is with your body
if you can't eat you gotta smoke
Little Joe Gould has lost his teeth and doesn't know where to find them
Next to of course god America I love you
As freedom is a breakfast food
these little children singing
all in green went my love riding
when serpents bargain for the right to squirm
Plato told him / he didn't believe it
somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond all experience
my father moved through the dooms of love
if there is any heaven, my mother has one all to herself [sorry, mangled that one]
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
Pity this poor creature manunkind / not
at McSorley's
because feeling is first, whoever pays attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you
Ok. That's 7 minutes and that's about all I can come up with. I did listen to part of a Cummings reading on youtube last week but I didn't look at anything C-related this week. I'm sure I "know" about twenty others and have read them all at some point in my life. My conclusion is the Cummings is memorable if nothing else. He reads aloud in this horribly affected voice and he was a scoundrel in many ways. I think the tricks he's known for are not what makes him good, when he is good (not infrequently) as a verse technician.
This is a good test for any poet you haven't read for a while.
1 comment:
I'm impressed. I recognize them all, but no way could I have produced them.
I'd forgotten the degree to which Cummings relies on affirming things we approve of -- except when the irony switch is flipped, in which case he makes sure you can't miss it.
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