[in Just-] by E. E. Cummings : The Poetry Foundation |
| Detroit Riverwalk |
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| Central Ohio, Rt. 4, when the world is mud-luscious and puddle wonderful |
I guess I’ve been posting spring-y photos without labeling them as such and without adding spring-y poems. So before the season is over, here’s a work about spring. I did a half-hearted search for a piece that was new to both B52, but decided nothing matched E.E. Cummings’ “In Just.” It’s been here before. Can you forgive me?
Speaking of forgiveness, I have a hard time forgiving poets
(or wannabes?) since Cummings who think they’re being terribly, terribly avant
garde by screwing with capitalization, grammar, punctuation, and word
invention. They are usually young beginners, but they still need to be aware
that Cummings was experimenting in those areas in the 1920s. It was
meaningfully new then, a breakthrough, pepper spray in the eye of the
establishment—and more importantly, a new way of seeing and presenting
experience.
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| Stage Nature Center, Michigan, late April |
Well, folks, that was a century ago, more or less. If you
want to be new, just to be new, then you need to . . . be new. You know? You
need to try something else, for a good reason. Sonnets can still work; see the A.E. Stallings poem a couple of posts ago. So try to be new only if it’s an
improvement on the tradition and only if it means seeing and expressing
experience more effectively. Otherwise, you’re just wearing the poetic
equivalent of a trendy four-day growth of beard; it looks dumb and accomplishes
nothing.
By the way, I think that when I like and respect Cummings,
which is surprisingly often, it is to some extent in spite of his challenges to
the tradition, not because of them. Some of his imagery—and “In Just” is a case
in point—is fresh and compelling all these years later. And it would still be
fresh and compelling in more standard formatting, though I think his new
lineation and other visual experiments do add to many of the poems’ purposes.
I'm undoubtedly less knowledgeable and also less critical of poems, but it seems to me that any poem has to be more than inventive of form, and that even the most innovative form of poem will be eclipsed by a poem derivative in form that has content of great meaning to the individual reading it.
ReplyDeleteIts hard for me to find good poems. Outside the greats like frost and whitman
ReplyDeleteTra la la, I feel like dancing after reading this poem. We're having such lovely weather and I'm spending long hours outside getting dirty and sweaty. It's Just fine.
ReplyDeleteGood timing. I've been meeting with some writing friends, to read. And one choice was Our Town. Which came in for some clobbering, but only I think because it's hard to imagine that when Wilder did what he did, no one, but no one, had ever done it before. Now, a century's worth of imitations get in the way.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite e.e. is Who Knows If the Moon's a Balloon.
Far too deep for me of course, but I fell for the non-standard format, and the apparently accidental distribution of lines, words, spaces and the content of each of these. I got an instant impression of spring.
ReplyDeleteAs I got from your photos - especially No.2.
Jean, sounds like we agree. You and PA, in the art world is there newness for its own sake? And is there some payoff for it from the experts? I'm betting yes.
ReplyDeleteAdam, and anyone else, always try the Poetry Foundation (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/ )
or Academy of American Poets (poets.org). At either place, you can simply type in a subject--such as spring--or a poet's name, or a poem title, and get lots of results. Good commentary about poets and poetry at both places too.
Paula, as long as you Just feel free and muddy about it.
AH, it's an interesting and sometimes sad issue, isn't it. I don't know your cummings fave, but will look it up. When he's good, he's really good. I have a young colleague (grad of a prestigious college) who was surprised to hear my impression that we "scholars" were expected to look down on e.e., compared, say, to Eliot or Auden. So maybe The Academy is loosening up in yet another way (permitting students to admire cummings--tho' they tend to go all white or black, like the rest of humanity. I've never understood what's wrong with grey, as long as it can argue well for NOT being black or white.
Rune, I disagree that it's too deep for you. I'd say you're off to a great start on the poem--unless we're both wrong, and I don't think that's the case. I'd say your "Apparently accidental distribution" . . . and "instant impression" are right on the money.
Paula, tra la la is good, but be sure to whistle as well, and say "wee" a lot.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that Cummings was within the zeitgeist of his time. Wordplay that was shortly thereafter institutionalized in the dada movement of WW1.
ReplyDeleteI will repeat my oft said mantra (that "I" only see the brilliance of) In my world the powers that be eat their young - the young eat their father's and resurrect their grandfathers. Your young colleague may be resurrecting the father you needed to kill.
btw: I liked the Moons a Balloon
(\_/)
( *_*)
(> )> www.pasadenaadjacent.com
U U
my new poem
B52, it's a given that anyone who says tra la la goes "Weeeee!" every chance they get.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but notice how serious the discussion but, hey, it's Sring and time's a-wastin'!
PA, I've never read about Cummings and Dadaism. It makes sense for his most extreme poems, but many, many others (like "In Just") seem much more coherent than what I understand Dada to argue.
ReplyDeleteYour theory of generations--I'd need to hear more detail, but it seems to make sense. Just consider how often grandparents get along with their young better than the parents do.
The real and symbolic parents seem fixated on setting up trials and barriers for their offspring--from pointless little wars to arcane, bigoted schools of literary theory. They do want to eat their young, so the young fight back. Am I in the ball park?
Or course, there are now the new yuppie helicopter parents . . . naming their kids Cedar and Granite and Henry. Sometimes I consider siring some more--twins--and naming them Brawt and Wurst or Weiner and DeepFried. Hash and Browns. Onion and Pepper. Mushroom and Swiss. Butter and I Can't Believe It Isn't Butter. Pop and Corn.
Help me, I can't stop.
Stone and High. Wine and Cheese.
Paula, you're too dirty to be properly solemn. Wash up, dump that Weeeee, and get serious.
"Am I in the ball park?" kind of, sort of, maybe.....
ReplyDeletebut as brilliant as I am, I'm much more amused at your rambling interpretation. Hysterical - I call my peers children, the bubble wrap generation.
Yeah Paula, time to jump in the tub
heavy gravy yea!
ReplyDeleteHelicopters full of bubble wrap.
ReplyDeleteKen, you should drop by Ben and Joy's in Mt. Sterling.
Paula, clean yet?
...I always loved "mud-
ReplyDeleteluscious" and "puddle-wonderful" in that poem! Thanks for reminding me of it. I haven't read it in years.
PA, I love your new poem.
ReplyDeleteAnd I like the ee cummings/ dada connection you suggest.
Kelly and Jean, that's good news--just what I hope for. This seems to be one of his most anthologized poems.
ReplyDeleteI like "mud-
ReplyDeleteluscious"
Makes me want to change my name to Isbel and make mudpies. Just as an experiment, that is.
Brenda, I bet I think of "mud-luscious" at least once every spring. I wouldn't mind being an Eddie, but I've lost any interest I may have had in mud pies.
ReplyDeleteAt last!!! I'm not pissing in the wind. Reread my earlier comment - I read this article that really put into words those things I've been trying to articulate for years.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-old-artists-20120617,0,4650823.story