Since Feeling is First
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
-the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutterwhich says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis (2)
It is observed that the poem is lyrical. The audience of this poem is the speaker’s lover and the tone of this poem is light hearted, but at the same time serious. The structure of this poem is a free verse and this poem consists of three stanzas
This poem tells us that feelings come before everything else, which therefore means anyone who pays attention to how things are supposed to be, will never be capable of knowing another's true nature. During spring, he suggests that being in love is much better than being wise. The speaker tells the reader that the girl has to forget everything and focus on this moment because life must not be a certain way. Lastly, he thinks that death is not a sign showing that their relationship has ended.
This poem, as stated before, is written in free verse, which does not contain a consistent pattern of rhyme. In the first stanza we can see that all the words fit together and they express the same feeling. We can directly spot that the beginning of each line is not capitalized and that some thoughts are stopped, such as “to” and “attention” from line to line. When looking at the second stanza there is assonance. In the phrase “and kisses are a better fate” the “e” sound in the same in these words. We can spot assonance again in the line “wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world” the “o” sounds in the words “to” and “fool” are the same. Cummings did this to show that the poem is meant to be tied together.
Not only assonance is found in this poem, alliteration is also found. When looking at the poem we can directly see that the title includes alliteration, “f” sounds of “feeling” and “first”. In line 14 we can see the use of alliteration, laugh, leaning back in my arms. The “l” between the first two words are the same and this connects the two words thus creating a better flow. The third example of alliteration is found in line 4-6. “will never wholly kiss you; wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world” In this section we can find the sound of “w”. “Will” and the word “world”, these words connect the first words of each separate stanza. The sound “wh” is found, but then with the words “wholly and “while”
In line 11-14 imagery is observed, these lines give the reader a clear image of what Cummings was thinking, an image of a man speaking to a woman, while her eyelids flutter as they have a conversation. After their first meeting, she laughs and falls into his arms. There is also a sign of personification in the third stanza "my blood approves" since he gives human characteristics to something non-human.
After reading this poem we can tell that E.E. Cummings was a romantic man, and loved girls. This poem also tells us that he cares about relationships "And death i think is no parenthesis" meaning that the relationship will not end even after his death.
(7)
I Like My Body When It Is With Your
i like my body when it is with your
body. it is so quite new a thing.
muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh… and eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new (2)
This poem” I like my body when it is with your” is a 14 line sonnet, it is a fourteen line sonnet when excluding the use of iambic pentameter and rigid rhyme scheme. This poem is description of when two bodies touch which creates electricity between the two people. The speaker of this poem can directly be noticed, the speaker is the poet himself and he is writing about a girl.
E.E. Cummings would usually use the structure of his poems to visually increase the poetic verse. This poem is structured in two separate tiers, with two lines separated at the end of the poem. This was not an accident he did this to imitate the passion of lovemaking. When looking at the beginning of the poem, we can see that the poem builds up excitement untill the words "trembling" which can be found on line 6. But the excitement does not stop, then it start over again in line 7, which leads to the climax in line 12 and the poem ends with exhaustion.
The vocabulary used in this poem is simple; due to the simple vocabulary one can retain some of the beauty of the experience. In line 10 we can see the phrase “Slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz / of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes / over parting flesh” This line may sound odd, but we can see that he is referring to the point of when there is contact between the male and the female. These vague words create the most extraordinary imagery in the poem.
In the title we can already see the use of assonance “It is” which shows the repeating sound of the letter “I”. At the same time we can also see alliteration being involved since the initial constant sound between the words are close. In the second line we can see a repeat of the words “it is” which is another sign of repetition and assonance. In the third line we can see the words “better and nerves” which shows repetition of the letter “e”. “body and its bones” in this line we can see both alliteration and assonance since we can see the repeat of the letter “o” and we can also see the initial constant sound between the both of them. Cummings used both assonance and alliteration for the second time but then in line 10 “slowly stroking, both the words start with the letter “s” and the reader can hear the repeating sound of the letter “o”.
There is repetition found in this poem, Cummings did this to emphasize important words. The phrase “ I like” appears a total of eight times. I like my body, I like your body, I like what it does, I like its hows, I like to feel the spine, I like kissing this and that of you, I like slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz of your electric fur, and I like the thrill. This shows that he likes almost everything that there is about this girl. This was not the only repeated phrase in the poem “So quite new”; this phrase can be seen twice, in the beginning and at the end. Therefore, this becomes the main focus point of this poem, he is saying that feeling between their bodies reinvents him, and causes him to feel knew.
After analyzing this poem, we can once again see that Cummings was a person who loved to write about girls and this poem shows that he had a strong connection with the theme, love. This poem's tone is also romantic, which again shows his connection with the theme love.
In Just-
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee (2)
In this poem “in Just-“, E.E. Cummings is imagining a scene with kids playing in the “mud-luscious” world and a strange balloon man appears. The balloon man whistles and the children follow him and rise. This is a metaphor and is used to show the loss of innocence as the children mature away from their childhood and games. This poem includes literary devices such as imagery and symbolism.
In the first stanza, line 2-3 there is assonance, the "u" sound gets repeated "mud-luscious" Cummings did this to make us hear these two words as one. In line 3-4 there is alliteration involved “luscious the little lame balloonman." It shows repetition of “I”. Alliteration is also found in the first line of this poem, “when the world”. We can hear repetition of the letter “w” at the beginning of each the words “when” and “world”. In line nine we can see alliteration as the words “when” and “world” show the repetition of the letter “w”. After seeing this poetic term we can see assonance as the words “it’s spring“ shows assonance which shows repetition of the letter “I”. We can also see assonance near the end of the poem aswell “far and” these two words show repetition of the letter “a”.
In line 10 we can see the phrase “the world is puddle wonderful”. Cummings shows that the poem is from the viewpoint of the child. Imagery is also used as he keeps on repeating the word “balloonman” but, he uses it in a different way each time. “little lame balloonman”, “queer old balloonman” and lastly “goat-footed Balloonman”. This creates images of the balloonman, but due to the repetition and suspense the image becomes more darkening in the innocent world of ones childhood.
Symbolism is also a feature observed in the poem. This is seen in the beginning and middle of the poem “it's spring”. Spring is the time of the year when there is maturity and growth, when flowers bloom and animals mate. Also, when the author mentions “and bettyandisbel come dancing from hopscotch and jump rope.” The hopscotch and jump rope represent the childhood games as fun activities that the kids leave behind when reaching maturity.
A writing strategy is also observed in the poem, narrative perspective is observed in the poem, this is illustrated when the poet writes “eddieandbill…bettyandisbel”. These words are mumbled into one and give the poem the perspective of a child, which directly means that the speaker is a child. Additionally, one might say that “isble” is missing a syllable and should be Isabel, but is instead pronounced like “isbel”, in a way in which a child may speak at a faster pace.
This poem shows us that Cummings made up hyphenated words, such as "puddle-wonderful" and "mud-luscious" E.E. Cummings is widely known for his lack of punctuation and his disregard towards grammatical rule in his poetry, but that is what makes his poetry so unique.
(8)
(9)
I Carry Your Heart With Me
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)
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
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) (2)
This poem written by E.E. Cummings can nearly be called a sonnet, but it is not. The poem almost has the right number of lines, which a sonnet needs, and it nearly has the right combination. But due to Cummings’ writing style this poem goes its own way, but still has a great effect. The tone of this poem is light hearted and also romantic. Cummings has an unusual writing style and therefore there is unusual capitalization found in this poem.
In the poem, it is stated that he carries his loves heart in his heart, which therefore means, wherever he goes, he feels her presence and whatever he does, he feels like he is doing it for her. He is holding her heart so that a strong foundation is created between them and so that nothing can separate them.
E. E Cummings was a poet who was inspired by lyricism. In the first line of the poem we can see signs of figurative language, he states that he caries her heart which has to be figurative. In the first sentence we can also see that the diction used is simple. In the first stanza we can see parenthesis, these parenthesis show the unity between the two lovers, its shows that they are connected. The parentheses and the word next to it are written without a gap in between, which again shows unity between the speaker and the anonymous. The parallelism in the third line of the first stanza, keeps the bond and unity between the two lovers strong “I go” and “you go”.
In line 6 we can see the words “I want” but on the next line he encounters that specific desire by writing in the line “no world”. This tells us that he doesn’t want anything beside his lover, which therefore tells us that his lover is his whole world. In other words, he is playing with words, which can also be found in the continuing sentences "it is, but it isn't"
“a sun will always sing is you” This line tells us that the sun can sing, which tells the reader that there is personification involved in this poem.
In this poem, you can directly hear repetition. In line 3, we can read “i go you go”, in the third stanza we can hear a lot of repetition. “root of the root” we can hear the repeating word, root. There are two more times when Cummings repeats himself, “sky of the sky“ and lastly “bud of the bud”.
In this poem we can find the repeating sound of the letter “I” which tells us that there is assonance. In the ninth line we can see the two words “sing is” this as stated before shows us the assonance which is involved in this poem. This poem also includes more assonance, this poetic element can also be found on the 13th line with the words “stars apart” the repeating sound of the letter “a” can be found. Lastly the words “mind can hide” show the repeating sound of “I” which connects the words together. This poem also includes alliteration, “doing, my darling” we can see the repetition of the initial constant sound at the beginning of these words.
“Here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root” this line is not talking about dirt but its symbolising, it’s a symbol for love. “Which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) this line, is symbolising love and it shows us the love is a unifying force. The words “roots and “buds” symbolise the same, they both symbolise life, the foundations of life. Therefore when E.E Cummings wrote “bud of the bud” we can see that love is the biggest foundation in life.
It is that this poem was written with a lot of care and love. Therefore it is widely recognized. As stated before, Cummings writes poems, which are mostly about love and romance, and once again, this poem is also about love.
(10)