by Justin Mcafee

Created on: January 10, 2009

"Unless you love someone, nothing else makes any sense." - e.e. cummings

The idea of love is often present in the writing of e.e. cummings as an omnipotent power that has almost an unimaginable force behind it. With many social criticisms, questions of morality, and random collections of words, e.e. cummings is a major contributer to love poems with such titles as 'i carry your heart'. He wrote love poetry that managed to be romantic without being sentimental and he was not afraid to write about sex either.

"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)"

This is the beginning stanzas of one of e.e. cummings greatest works of love and of poetry itself. You can see the developing theme of a love that is untouched by an outside world and it is understandable to say that he has a hopeless romantic view. If we dig further in this poem we will see the following:

"i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you"

If you paid attention to the quote at the beginning of this article, you will see a common motif of love that stops the world, a kind of love that not only is beyond imagination but a love that makes the rest of the world dissipate within its light. This is a very idealistic view and nowadays is a highly skeptical look at the emotion. Modern poets and songwriters seem to express a kind of love riddled with troubles and worries. While his poetic forms and themes share an affinity with the romantic tradition, cummings work is widely comprised of idiosyncratic syntax. This jumbling of words mean nothing when presented in pieces but as a whole, e.e. cummings poetry becomes a moving piece that peers into the soul of the reader.

A number of his poems feature a typographically exuberant style, with words, parts of words, or punctuation symbols scattered across the page, often making little sense until read aloud, at which point the meaning and emotion become clear. Another love poem of his that further exemplifies his theme of ideal love is 'if i love you'. It reads as follows:

if i love You
(thickness means
worlds inhabited by roamingly
stern bright faeries

if you love
me) distance is mind carefully
luminous with innumerable gnomes
Of complete dream

if we love each (shyly)
other, what clouds do or Silently
Flowers resembles beauty
less than our breathing

The common theme is once more expressed even though the incomprehensibility is present. The syntax is once more riddled with parentheses and what would seemingly be a collision of words. After reading it a couple times you begin to see the motif develop and once more idealistic love in its purest form shine through.

A man riddled himself with three marriages (one only being expressed as a common-law) shows us what it is to be truly in love and to understand the beauty of it all. Edward Estlin Cummings has once more renewed his place as the top of American Literature and he doesn't seem to be giving it up anytime soon.

"Kisses are a better fate than wisdom." - e.e. cummings

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