The document discusses the complex relationship of E.E. Cummings with visual poetry and its interpretation, illustrating how his unique style challenges readers to engage deeply with the text. It explores the influences on Cummings' work, including his childhood, experiences in war, exposure to Freudian theories, and personal relationships, emphasizing that while influenced by various factors, his artistry was a product of deliberate experimentation. Ultimately, the document highlights Cummings' significant impact on poetry and the lasting legacy of his unconventional methods.

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Louis Wischnewsky
Prof. G. Smith
English 102
December 7, 2011
E e. Cummings: Clamored Order
The masses have long had a love-hate relationship with playwrights and poets, emphasis
on poets. The paradox is that the few words of a poet can be terribly complicated to understand.
Fewer words, to most, should be fairly simple in meaning. The case of E. E. Cummings is an
ideal example of this dichotomy. For example, his poem “1(a leaffalls)oneliness” is more of a
collection of letters than it is of words:
1(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness (Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing, 883-884)
“A leaf falls loneliness.” How complicated can that be to understand? Yet, it is open to many
interpretations.

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Complicated or not, Cummings certainly had a significant impact upon literature,
particularly poetry. He brought an entirely new concept to visual poetry. In doing so, he
accomplished what some noteworthy predecessors were unable to do: force the reader to engage
the poem as if he were the speaker himself. Mimicking Cummings, it is hard to garner the same
esteem because it is easy to miss Cummings' point: it is not what you read, but how you say it.
Sadly, though, his powerful way of affecting the visual arrangement of words is mostly what
Cummings is famous for, even though that is just a small part of his overall plethora of literature.
These aspects of the poet bring out two different things to consider when trying to know what
influenced Cummings. Already mentioned is the inspiration for why he created a new form of
visual poetry. What, though, influenced his actual subjects? Four different periods or events in
his life answer that question.
Looking pre-Cummings, yes, “concrete” or visual (also called emblem poetry) – poems
whose words are arranged in shapes – had been around for a long time (Kirszner and Mandel,
801,1007-1008). For example, long before Cummings, George Herbert created a visual poem
with “Easter Wings” (1008). “Randomly arranged words,” however, are a distinctive Cummings
trademark (see poem in opening paragraph). Herbert's poem was revolutionary in that it created a
visual image. It did not, however, cause the reader to think with varied emotion or even varied
pace. Poems like Cummings' “a leaf [...]”, though, does something totally different: it forces the
reader to pause, to second guess what is being read. Is the first character an “L” or a “one?” Who
knows? And that is the point of the poem: to demonstrate to the reader that everyone knows they
are an individual, but what is an individual? Starting and stopping, reflecting on whether the
reader has interpreted what is written, what is history, the poem is a reflection of life: successes
sometimes, failures others. “Easter Egg” questions faith and admits sin while hoping for God's
mercy, but it requires the reader to put himself or herself into the emotion; it requires the reader

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relate to the speaker. Cummings' poem requires the reader be the speaker, accomplishing the goal
whether the reader wants it to happen or not.
Punctuation is probably an even larger signature of Cummings. Yet, again, Cummings
was not the first to attempt using punctuation to affect what is being read in the poem. Emily
Dickinson appears to have worked hard at the same goal. Look at how she used hyphens in
“'Heaven' – is what I cannot reach!” to force certain emotions within the reader:
“Heaven” - is what I cannot reach!
The Apple on the Tree –
Provided it do hopeless – hang –
The – “Heaven” is – to Me! (1142-1143)
The idea Dickinson is trying to convey is that the speaker is distraught, talking to someone, who
does not matter, but to herself at the same time. “Heaven” is in quotes as if Heaven's existence is
questionable. Regardless, the speaker stresses that she cannot reach it and that is known because
of the exclamation point. Cummings sees what Dickinson wanted to accomplish and asks, “What
if I tried the same thing but instead of using punctuation, I simply do not use punctuation at all?”
The net result is powerful and gives him far more lattitude than that of an irritable, frustrated
speaker. Here are two lines from “in Just –”: “whistles far and wee / and eddieandbill
come” (Literature …, 957). Cummings forces a long pause where Dickinson would have forced a
quick aside. Yet, Cummings is fully capable of forcing the quick aside, as well, by putting the
names together as one word. The range of emotion Cummings' technique allows is infinite.
What's more, though he does not so to a large degree with “in Just –”, he most certainly could
add punctuation anytime he wanted. Look at this line from “let us suspect,cherie,this not very
big”: “if we look at it we will want to touch it.” (Complete Poems …, 957). Bam! “If we look at
each other naked, something is going to happen. Period. End of debate.” He gets the same start

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and sudden stop to the thought Dickinson was forcing in her poem, but Cummings can have the
speaker linger in thought (“whistles far and wee”) and, yet, says much without saying
anything at all (“if we look at it we will want to touch it.”). Dickinson's technique could not.
The end result is that, in reality, Cummings did not randomly place words on the paper.
Nor did he leave out punctuation or capitalization simply to be unique and stand out. In reality,
he actually did use punctuation, but sparingly, as noted above. His arrangement had a purpose.
Think of Cummings like Pablo Picasso: it might seem and look cheap and easy, but the art has a
very specific reason – and takes a long time to develop. In fact, Cummings considered Picasso,
“one of the greatest of the living painters” (A Miscellany Revised, 99). Why? Well look at what
Picasso was capable of and why he created cubist art. Picasso was fully capable of Botticelli-
grade work (Picasso). However, he wanted to transpose the emotion of the subject into the
viewer. Cummings wanted to do the same with readers of poetry and, thus, was an admirer of the
cubist. What's more, Cummings was quite capable of traditional schematics. Indeed, the majority
of his work falls well within traditional conventions. He was not only a master of written
language, though, he was also a master of auditory exchange and it is the auditory vernacular of
words that usually commands the greatest emotions within human beings. Perhaps even
Shakespeare knew this some hundreds of years earlier, but it was Cummings that revolutionized
language and introduced a way of letting that exchange happen within written words.
What, though, influenced this literary giant? There are as many answers to that question
as there are interpretations of any of his poems. Even so, there are some events in his life that
clearly affected his worldview. Cummings had made up his mind to be a poet at an early age. The
total anthology of his published works, E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems: 1904-1962, shows a
poem written in 1904 when Cummings would have been only ten years old (1054). Thus, his
childhood had already guided him to be a poet in the first place. His imprisonment in France

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after the first world war was an influence, as well, motivating him to write “[in] a rather clumsy
and inadequate way” - but not so much in his poetry; The Enormous Room, is the reflection upon
that internment (Friedman, 23-24). As Eleanor Sickels explained, like many liberal bohemians of
the day, Cummings was initially interested in the ideal of egalitarian communism (229-232).
However, the Russian, or anti-Russian, influence was well after his most famous subject,
eroticism, had become his forte and made him a, in true Cummings fashion, reluctantly eager
capitalist (229-236). So while Cummings' adventures across the pond were influential, they were
hardly foundations of his motivations.
Rather, according to Milton A. Cohen, Cummings had a profound affinity toward Freud
and his theories. Freudian influence on the poet is largely unknown, particularly Cummings'
poetry from the late 1910s and early 1920s (592). In fact, a claim that Freudian influence upon
Cummings during that period is profound would be dead on. To begin with, Cummings was
unique among bohemian Modernists in that he not only accepted Freudian theory, Cummings
actually incorporated, or attempted to, into his life (591).
The evidence is blatant: not only do Cummings' works from that period have a greater
frequency, and more intense elicit references than other periods of his life, there was the Elaine
Orr affair that only amplified his misconception of what Freud was saying. Cummings figured,
with his own interpretation of Freud, that Orr's pregnancy was her problem, not his. His reaction,
denial that he sired the child, reflects more of a lack of initial self-confidence in the theory. Here
was Scofield Thayer, the poet's college mentor, introducing and promoting Freudian philosophy
on Cummings' young mind but when “Jack Death” came knocking, suddenly Thayer is not a
Freudian practitioner (592, 594-595). Neither was Orr, whom Cummings surely thought was a
Freud disciple, as well.
The end result is a transition from obvious suggestion, prior to the affair, in “wanta

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spendsix” …
wanta
spendsix
dollars Kid
2 for the room
and
four for the girl (Cummings, 942)
to testing the waters, referencing each other's sex as “it” in “let us suspect,cherie,this not very
big” …
if we look at it we will want to touch it.
And we mustn't because(something tells me)
ever so very carefully if we
begin to handle it
out jumps Jack Death (957)
It is obvious Cummings has moved from toying with eroticism to desperately wanting to ignore
potential consequences, per his interpretation of Freudian ideology; Jack Death being
consumation of a child – having to be responsible Cummings' ultimate disaster: death. The affair
was not, in Cummings' mind, erotic in itself. What made the affair his step into the raw sexual
pursuit he believed Freud was directing him toward was the fact Orr was married. The evidence
comes in several poems written during the Orr affair.
Upon the end of the Orr affair period of poems, Cummings goes all out with poems like
“my humorous ghost precisely will” and “Lady,i will touch you with my mind” (Complete …,
967, 983). Cummings, through the voice of the speaker, can not get enough sex. He loves

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women for the pleasure they bring him, but he loathes them because they remind him there are
consequences for his acts, whether they are random sex or, in the case of his trip to Russia,
purposeful equality. The Soviets promised an egalitarian society. Problem was, a person had to
give up all their freedoms in exchange. Cummings adored women for their vaginas, but loathed
them for their pregnancies or their weight gain or any other defect he could imagine within or
upon them.
Cummings would probably be joyed to know that nearly fifty years after his demise, he is
still widely recognized even beyond the world of art and literature. Unfortunately, to cite
Cummings when individuals fill their pages with errors, calling the mess poetry, truly dishonors
this literary giant's legacy. Cummings worked almost his entire life perfecting his writing skills.
He did not avoid traditional conventions randomly and there is not a single shred of evidence to
conclude that he did. Rather, he did so in order to know when, where, and why to break the rules
of the king's English, creating, thus, a clamored order to his style. It is practically impossible to
lay claim that any one thing, event, or person influenced any writer or artist and this especially
holds true of Cummings. Still, his childhood, days in a French prison, his trip to the Soviet
Union, and his simultaneous exposure to Freud and affair with Elaine Orr were big events in
Cummings' life, even for someone of his stature. It was his desire to be a great poet that allowed
him to experiment until he created poems like “in Just -,” but it was the end of that list that gave
him his preferred subject matter.

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Works Cited
Cohen, Milton A. “Cummings and Freud.” American Literature. Vol. 55. Issue 4, (1983): 591-
610. JSTOR Web. 13 Nov 2011.
Cummings, E. E. “1(a leaf falls)loneliness.” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. 7th ed. Eds.
Kirszner, Laurie G. and Mandell, Stephen R. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011. 833-884. Print.
---. A Miscellany Revised. New York: October House, 1965. 99-100. Print.
---. “DEDICATED TO DEAR NANA CLARKE.” E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems: 1904-
1962. Ed. George J. Firmage. New York: Liveright Publishing Company, 1991. 1054.
Print.
---. “in Just –” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. 7th ed. Eds. Kirszner, Laurie G. and
Mandell, Stephen R. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011. 957. Print.
---. “Lady,i will touch you with my mind.” E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems: 1904-1962. Ed.
George J. Firmage. New York: Liveright Publishing Company, 1991. 983. Print.
---. “let us suspect,cherie,this not very big.” E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems: 1904-1962. Ed.
George J. Firmage. New York: Liveright Publishing Company, 1991. 957. Print.
---. “my humorous ghost precisely will.” E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems: 1904-1962.
Ed. George J. Firmage. New York: Liveright Publishing Company, 1991. 967. Print.
---. “wanta spendsix .” E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems: 1904-1962. Ed. George J.
Firmage. New York: Liveright Publishing Company, 1991. 942. Print.
Dickens, Emily. “'Heaven' – is what I cannot reach!” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. 7th
ed. Eds. Kirszner, Laurie G. and Mandell, Stephen R. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011. 1142-
1143. Print.
Friedman, Norman. e. e. cummings: The Growth of a Writer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1964. 23-24. Print.

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Herbert, George. “Easter Wings.” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. 7th ed. Eds. Kirszner,
Laurie G. and Mandell, Stephen R. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011. 1008. Print.
Kirszner, Laurie G. and Mandell, Stephen R. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. 7th ed.
Boston: Wadsworth, 2011. 801, 1007-1008. Print.
Sickels, Eleanor M. “The Unworld of E. E. Cummings.” American Literature. Vol. 26. Issue 2,
1954: 223-238. Online.
Picasso, Pablo. First Communion. 1896. Museo Picasso, Barcelona, Spain. ABCGallery.com.
Web. 06 Dec 2011.