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95 Poems
Published in 1958, 95 Poems is the last book of new poems published in Cummings's lifetime. Remarkable for its vigor, freshness, interest in ordinary individuals, and awareness of the human life cycle, the book reflects Cummings's observations on nature and his prevailing gratitude for whatever life offers: "Time's a strange fellow: more he gives than takes." This new edition joins other individual uniform Liveright paperback volumes drawn from the Complete Poems, most recently Etcetera and 22 and 50 Poems.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
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About the author
E.E. Cummings
369 books3,931 followersEdward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 1894. He began writing poems as early as 1904 and studied Latin and Greek at the Cambridge Latin High School.
He received his BA in 1915 and his MA in 1916, both from Harvard University. His studies there introduced him to the poetry of avant-garde writers, such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound.
In 1917, Cummings published an early selection of poems in the anthology Eight Harvard Poets. The same year, Cummings left the United States for France as a volunteer ambulance driver in World War I. Five months after his assignment, however, he and a friend were interned in a prison camp by the French authorities on suspicion of espionage (an experience recounted in his novel, The Enormous Room) for his outspoken anti-war convictions.
After the war, he settled into a life divided between houses in rural Connecticut and Greenwich Village, with frequent visits to Paris. He also traveled throughout Europe, meeting poets and artists, including Pablo Picasso, whose work he particularly admired.
In 1920, The Dial published seven poems by Cummings, including "Buffalo Bill ’s.” Serving as Cummings’ debut to a wider American audience, these “experiments” foreshadowed the synthetic cubist strategy Cummings would explore in the next few years.
In his work, Cummings experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling, and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly idiosyncratic means of poetic expression. Later in his career, he was often criticized for settling into his signature style and not pressing his work toward further evolution. Nevertheless, he attained great popularity, especially among young readers, for the simplicity of his language, his playful mode and his attention to subjects such as war and sex.
The poet and critic Randall Jarrell once noted that Cummings is “one of the most individual poets who ever lived—and, though it sometimes seems so, it is not just his vices and exaggerations, the defects of his qualities, that make a writer popular. But, primarily, Mr. Cummings’s poems are loved because they are full of sentimentally, of sex, of more or less improper jokes, of elementary lyric insistence.”
During his lifetime, Cummings received a number of honors, including an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship at Harvard, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 1958, and a Ford Foundation grant.
At the time of his death, September 3, 1962, he was the second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost. He is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.
source: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/e-...
He received his BA in 1915 and his MA in 1916, both from Harvard University. His studies there introduced him to the poetry of avant-garde writers, such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound.
In 1917, Cummings published an early selection of poems in the anthology Eight Harvard Poets. The same year, Cummings left the United States for France as a volunteer ambulance driver in World War I. Five months after his assignment, however, he and a friend were interned in a prison camp by the French authorities on suspicion of espionage (an experience recounted in his novel, The Enormous Room) for his outspoken anti-war convictions.
After the war, he settled into a life divided between houses in rural Connecticut and Greenwich Village, with frequent visits to Paris. He also traveled throughout Europe, meeting poets and artists, including Pablo Picasso, whose work he particularly admired.
In 1920, The Dial published seven poems by Cummings, including "Buffalo Bill ’s.” Serving as Cummings’ debut to a wider American audience, these “experiments” foreshadowed the synthetic cubist strategy Cummings would explore in the next few years.
In his work, Cummings experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling, and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly idiosyncratic means of poetic expression. Later in his career, he was often criticized for settling into his signature style and not pressing his work toward further evolution. Nevertheless, he attained great popularity, especially among young readers, for the simplicity of his language, his playful mode and his attention to subjects such as war and sex.
The poet and critic Randall Jarrell once noted that Cummings is “one of the most individual poets who ever lived—and, though it sometimes seems so, it is not just his vices and exaggerations, the defects of his qualities, that make a writer popular. But, primarily, Mr. Cummings’s poems are loved because they are full of sentimentally, of sex, of more or less improper jokes, of elementary lyric insistence.”
During his lifetime, Cummings received a number of honors, including an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship at Harvard, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 1958, and a Ford Foundation grant.
At the time of his death, September 3, 1962, he was the second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost. He is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.
source: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/e-...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews
February 20, 2017
"...higher than should can hope or him can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
- E.E. Cummings, 95 Poems, "92"
Hunched,
parkfriendlyplay-
fully(feel
he feeds &
robins) through
soft bars
sunshined
of whys &
democraticyellow
daffodils of >
(now)
Old poet
coppes
silken web
truthtulles
of April --
triangulating:
(i) third-person
love, &
(ii) singular simple
time, w/
(iii) always present >
(death) &c.
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
- E.E. Cummings, 95 Poems, "92"
Hunched,
parkfriendlyplay-
fully(feel
he feeds &
robins) through
soft bars
sunshined
of whys &
democraticyellow
daffodils of >
(now)
Old poet
coppes
silken web
truthtulles
of April --
triangulating:
(i) third-person
love, &
(ii) singular simple
time, w/
(iii) always present >
(death) &c.
December 19, 2024
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)
(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)
October 29, 2020
[rating = B-]
This collection was a bit more traditional, at least in terms of style, though also in the subject matter. The best poems were 10-40, all the others were either a bit vague or just ordinary. Although he still retains his lovely way of looking at the world and by compounding odd words together, he also tended to write in a bit of a daze, as if he wasn't fully invested in the latter section of the collection. But all the same, I love E. E. Cummings and find him invigorating and original.
This collection was a bit more traditional, at least in terms of style, though also in the subject matter. The best poems were 10-40, all the others were either a bit vague or just ordinary. Although he still retains his lovely way of looking at the world and by compounding odd words together, he also tended to write in a bit of a daze, as if he wasn't fully invested in the latter section of the collection. But all the same, I love E. E. Cummings and find him invigorating and original.
December 3, 2017
Read cover to cover in roughly an hour. Some are breathtakingly beautiful, some are utterly confounding (hence the wtf shelving), some are an adorable instant gone in a breath. I soon realized that it helped to read most of them with two separate voices in my head: that of the general text and that of the (text in parentheses). Made it much easier to follow.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 16 - 41 - 60 - 73 - 78 - 83 - 87 - 92 - 95
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 16 - 41 - 60 - 73 - 78 - 83 - 87 - 92 - 95
December 11, 2018
I read this short volume in a single sitting and concluded that I liked it in spite of also disliking it. Comparing his style of poetry to visual arts made me think that he was a fusion of Picasso, Pollock, and Monet - His use of the basic shapes of language (Picasso) is thrown together in what seem to be random or unexpected ways (Pollock) but the overall impression conveyed in his poetry was pleasing nonetheless (Monet).
Pros: I really enjoyed some of his imagery and clever descriptions. Some of his forms (such as circular/wrapping poems or poems inside poems) were fun to decipher and fun to read.
Cons: His total lack of disregard for conventions of the English language (yes, I know this is a stylistic choice) makes my middle school students’ rough drafts look like masterpieces in comparison; this misuse of punctuation, capitalization, and syntax seems to be a foretaste of and even a contributor to the nonsensicalness of postmodern poetry. Some poems’ forms were too complicated or bizarre for me to even bother trying to figure out. And while I’m not opposed to the use of “non-words” in writing, cummings is no Shakespeare in his creation of new vocabulary.
Pros: I really enjoyed some of his imagery and clever descriptions. Some of his forms (such as circular/wrapping poems or poems inside poems) were fun to decipher and fun to read.
Cons: His total lack of disregard for conventions of the English language (yes, I know this is a stylistic choice) makes my middle school students’ rough drafts look like masterpieces in comparison; this misuse of punctuation, capitalization, and syntax seems to be a foretaste of and even a contributor to the nonsensicalness of postmodern poetry. Some poems’ forms were too complicated or bizarre for me to even bother trying to figure out. And while I’m not opposed to the use of “non-words” in writing, cummings is no Shakespeare in his creation of new vocabulary.
February 28, 2025
I waffled on rating this higher because the poems that are good are SO good.
There are many in here that are his more experimental, and honestly, I don’t think they all land. But man you gotta give the guy props for the innovative ways he played with language, syntax, and grammar.
There are many in here that are his more experimental, and honestly, I don’t think they all land. But man you gotta give the guy props for the innovative ways he played with language, syntax, and grammar.
February 11, 2008
e. e. cummings is my favorite poet because of his unique form of writing...each poem is like a puzzle, and every poem is set up differently. the method you use to read and understand one may not work for another, or there may be multiple ways to read and interpret the poetry. some poems embrace a "less is more" structure, others literally create shapes on the page with the words. in this collection of poems, e. e. cummings combined the art of poetry with the art of typography to create something appealing to both poetry lovers and designers.
i've read this book of poems from front to back many times, and thoroughly enjoyed each read. with a poem for almost any occasion or mood, this book always makes me think.
i've read this book of poems from front to back many times, and thoroughly enjoyed each read. with a poem for almost any occasion or mood, this book always makes me think.
June 2, 2024
Wow. Number 77 might’ve just become my favorite poem of all time.
i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest, i am not sorry when sun and rain make april
my life is the life of the reaper and the sower; my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving (finding and losing and laughing and crying) children whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness
around me surges a miracle of unceasing birth and glory and death and resurrection: over my sleeping self float flaming symbols of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains
i am a little church (far from the frantic world with its rapture and anguish at peace with nature
—i do not worry if longer nights grow longest; i am not sorry when silence becomes singing
winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever: standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence (welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)
A few other of my favs from this collection: 2, 11, 30, 36, 45, 48, 49, 70, 71, 78.
i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest, i am not sorry when sun and rain make april
my life is the life of the reaper and the sower; my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving (finding and losing and laughing and crying) children whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness
around me surges a miracle of unceasing birth and glory and death and resurrection: over my sleeping self float flaming symbols of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains
i am a little church (far from the frantic world with its rapture and anguish at peace with nature
—i do not worry if longer nights grow longest; i am not sorry when silence becomes singing
winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever: standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence (welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)
A few other of my favs from this collection: 2, 11, 30, 36, 45, 48, 49, 70, 71, 78.
August 18, 2023
at last, 2, 6, 8, 11, 15, 18, 24, 47, 48, 51, 62, 63, 83, 89, and 91 are very gorgeous to me
March 6, 2008
I'm in the midst of reading this book - which means I've read it once, and some parts more than once, and I'll be coming back to it again.
This is the first book of poetry that I've read in a while. I wanted to start reading poetry again, and I chose E.E. Cummings because I had a recollection that he was an accessible poet, and I remembered liking his wordplay and variations on the actual typeset form of the poems.
Well, I was right and wrong. His interruption of words and sentences could be whimsical, beautiful, and at times baffling to me. There were some poems that could be touched easily...
Beautiful
is the
unmea
ning
of(sil
ently)fal
ling(e
ver
yw
here)s
Now
...and some that I didn't like at all...
as joe gould says in
his terrifyingly hu
man man
ner the only reason every wo
man
should
go to college is so
that she never can(kno
wledge is po
wer)say o
if i
'd
OH
n
lygawntueco
llege
...I understand Joe Gould had some influence on E.E., but seriously - is this the kind of stuff that needs to be immortalized in a poem? Come on, E.E.! I see your repeated emphasis on the word "man", but still.
And then there were those that were simply beyond my grasp...
round a so moon could dream(i sus
pect )only god himself & as
loveless some world not any un
god manufacture might but man
kind yet in park this grim most(these
one who are)lovers cling & kiss
neither beholding a nor seen
by some that bum who's every one
...if anyone can help me out with that one, I'd appreciate it. Really.
Like I said, I'm working with them. I'm coming back, getting used to the language and the breakdown of the words, understanding and intuiting more. I don't know if I'll ever understand it all, but I'm swimming in.
This is the first book of poetry that I've read in a while. I wanted to start reading poetry again, and I chose E.E. Cummings because I had a recollection that he was an accessible poet, and I remembered liking his wordplay and variations on the actual typeset form of the poems.
Well, I was right and wrong. His interruption of words and sentences could be whimsical, beautiful, and at times baffling to me. There were some poems that could be touched easily...
Beautiful
is the
unmea
ning
of(sil
ently)fal
ling(e
ver
yw
here)s
Now
...and some that I didn't like at all...
as joe gould says in
his terrifyingly hu
man man
ner the only reason every wo
man
should
go to college is so
that she never can(kno
wledge is po
wer)say o
if i
'd
OH
n
lygawntueco
llege
...I understand Joe Gould had some influence on E.E., but seriously - is this the kind of stuff that needs to be immortalized in a poem? Come on, E.E.! I see your repeated emphasis on the word "man", but still.
And then there were those that were simply beyond my grasp...
round a so moon could dream(i sus
pect )only god himself & as
loveless some world not any un
god manufacture might but man
kind yet in park this grim most(these
one who are)lovers cling & kiss
neither beholding a nor seen
by some that bum who's every one
...if anyone can help me out with that one, I'd appreciate it. Really.
Like I said, I'm working with them. I'm coming back, getting used to the language and the breakdown of the words, understanding and intuiting more. I don't know if I'll ever understand it all, but I'm swimming in.
December 16, 2019
Cummings slightly cuts back his experimental syntax. I still don’t find him interesting.
March 1, 2008
I weaseled my father into buying this book for me when I was just a tad bit drunk and belligerent. The used copy he sighed over and then payed for only cost $1.95, so I was primed to love it for this reason alone. Perhaps in my drunken state, I imagined the punctuation to form a language all its own, but truthfully, this book is not very interesting at all. The punctuation play can be fun, I liked one maybe two poems, but overall the words don't really function other than to diverge. So basically, I got through half the book, and decided to set it aside.
April 23, 2011
As usual with cummings, I love some poems and despair of understanding others. cummings seems less obscure in his old age, but can still be pretty darn obscure. A couple of poems in this collection actually rhyme, and he does that better than most of his contemporaries. Worthwhile, but my taste is for his early work and the love poems of his early middle period.
March 30, 2009
I like 92 too!
September 2, 2022
I love e.e. cummings poetry. After finishing this book this afternoon I wrote this homage poem. It’s my review.
after e.e. cummings
each poem a puzzle unpuzzled
an unmeal digested
wordbig bite by wordbig bite
each raveled line unraveled
by savoury scansion
fettered meanings unfettered
(as it’s words
fall
tr
ipp
ing
l
y
off the tongues
through the softened teeth of)
internal voices of multitudinous readers
in joyful dialogue
with the un-author
(not alive but living still)
(so that life word art the losers aren’t
and death the winner isn’t)
fed sated though having not eaten
(but not unfull
filled in fact)
with knowledge beauty of the word
—not as was
once past of olde—
but fangled new
language metamorphosed free
to should be
will be
now
—Christopher Hunt (@ExLibrisMrHunt)
after e.e. cummings
each poem a puzzle unpuzzled
an unmeal digested
wordbig bite by wordbig bite
each raveled line unraveled
by savoury scansion
fettered meanings unfettered
(as it’s words
fall
tr
ipp
ing
l
y
off the tongues
through the softened teeth of)
internal voices of multitudinous readers
in joyful dialogue
with the un-author
(not alive but living still)
(so that life word art the losers aren’t
and death the winner isn’t)
fed sated though having not eaten
(but not unfull
filled in fact)
with knowledge beauty of the word
—not as was
once past of olde—
but fangled new
language metamorphosed free
to should be
will be
now
—Christopher Hunt (@ExLibrisMrHunt)
November 11, 2018
This collection had some of Cummings’ most well known poems, as well as some I’d never even heard of. It was a beautiful reintroduction to his work; poem 51 in particular really got to me. I’m not sure why, and I’m content with that - keeping the poem and its wonder with me.
Read
September 3, 2021Yup. yeppers
October 7, 2021
I love the style. I thought the first half of the collection was stronger than the second, but it was curious and whimsical all the way through!
Read
April 10, 2025Incredibly religious, but delicately so
December 31, 2016
I think enjoying these poems requires some type of literary understanding that I don't yet have.
January 21, 2011
I'm not going to review all of the e.e. cummings collections that I own (there are way too many as I have this thing about collecting them). What I will say is that cummings has this totally selfish/creative/lovely/beautiful/erotic way of writing that just gets me every time. There is rarely a poem of his that I've read that I don't like. He's modern and writes very much that way, and I love his playful use of punctuality and grammar as a means of conveying his emotions. If you've never read cummings, you may love him, you may hate him, but you can't deny that he was an original.
August 5, 2017
Appreciated and admired the boundaries Cummings pushed in his style and approach to writing, but I didn't especially enjoy most of it.
January 18, 2022
95 Poems was the last book of new poems published in Cummings's lifetime. This is evident from the style, which appears to be more refined, more fully realized than in Cummings's earlier collections. Cummings's style is most recognizable in the poems that contain his signature arrangement (or derangement) of words. By which I mean unconventional capitalization, spacing, and punctuation. To varying effects. At times the poems appear to be competing thoughts in the mind of the poet ("19"), while others appear tangential ("30"). There are playful poems ("50") and puzzling poems ("53"). But overall, however many trains of thought or word puzzles there may be, the poems appear, more often than not, to be complimentary ("57")...
I'm always interested to see the recurrence of ee in Cummings's poetry. It seems to me that the poet is signing his work...
My favourite lines in the collection...
This collection contains Cummings's most overtly political poem, addressing the USA's role in the Hungarian Revolution...
un(bee)mo
vi
ng(in)g
are(th
e)you(o
nly)
asl(rose)eep
- 19 (pg. 20)
what Got him was Noth
ing & nothing's exAct
ly what any
one Living(or some
body Dead
like
even a Poet)could
hardly express what
i Mean is
what knocked him over Wasn't
(for instance)the Knowing your
whole(yes god
damned)life is a Flop or even
to
Feel how
Everything(dreamed
& hoped &
prayed for
months & weeks & days & years
& nights &
forever)is Less Than
Nothing(which would have been
Something)what got him was nothing
- 30 (pg. 32)
!
o(rounD)moon,how
do
you(rouNd
er
than roUnd)float;
who
lly &(rOunder than)
go
:ldenly(Round
est)
?
- 50 (pg. 53)
n
ot eth
eold almos
tladyf eebly
hurl ing
cr u
mb
son ebyo
neatt wothre
efourfi ve&six
engli shsp
arr ow
s
- 53 (pg. 56)
old age sticks
up Keep
Off
signs)&
youth yanks them
down(old
age
cries No
Tres)&(pas)
youth laughs
(sing
old age
scolds Forbid
den Stop
Must
n't Don't
&)youth goes
right on
gr
owing old
- 57 (pg. 60)
I'm always interested to see the recurrence of ee in Cummings's poetry. It seems to me that the poet is signing his work...
dim
i
nu
tiv
e this park is e
mpty (every b
ody's elsewher
e except me 6 e
nglish sparrow
s)a
utumn & t
he rai
n
th
e
raintherain
- 24 (pg. 25)
the(oo)is
lOOk
(aliv
e)e
yes
are(chIld)and
wh(g
o
ne)
o
w(A)a(M)s
- 68 (pg. 71)
My favourite lines in the collection...
"as small as a world and as large as alone" (10, pg. 11)
"because my tears / are full of eyes" (25, pg. 27)
"worlds are to dream now / dreams are to breathe" (83, pg. 86)
This collection contains Cummings's most overtly political poem, addressing the USA's role in the Hungarian Revolution...
Thanksgiving (1956)
a monstering horror swallows
this unworld me by you
as the god of our fathers' father bows
to a which that walks like a who
but the voice-with-a-smile of democracy
announces night & day
"all poor little peoples that want to be free
just trust in the u s a"
suddenly uprose hungary
and she gave a terrible cry
"no slave's unlife shall murder me
for i will freely die"
she cried so high thermopylae
heard her and marathon
and all prehuman history
and finally The UN
"be quiet little hungary
and do as you are bid
a good kind bear is angary
we fear for the quo pro quid"
uncle sam shrugs his pretty
pink shoulders you know how
and he twitches a liberal titty
and lisps "i'm busy right now"
so rah-rah-rah democracy
let's all be as thankful as hell
and bury the statue of liberty
(because it begins to smell)
- 39 (pg. 41)
January 12, 2025
e.e. cummings truly finds correct punctuation and syntax and making sense optional, it's so unique. but sometimes you have to wonder: does he really need to be doing all of that? a lot of the poems were not interesting enough to take the time to understand them, but i did enjoy having to reread the ones that caught my interest, it's like doing a little puzzle
4 star rating mainly because i carry your heart with me was one of the first poems ever to interest me in poetry
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)
my favorites from the collection: because you take life in your stride(instead, in time's a noble mercy of proportion, i am a little church(no great cathedral), being to timelessness as it's to time, i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
4 star rating mainly because i carry your heart with me was one of the first poems ever to interest me in poetry
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)
my favorites from the collection: because you take life in your stride(instead, in time's a noble mercy of proportion, i am a little church(no great cathedral), being to timelessness as it's to time, i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
December 17, 2024
E.E. Cummings is my favorite poet, followed by Poe and Dickinson. I have owned this book since 1984 when I first started working in a bookstore (B. Dalton for those of you who are Boomers or Gen X). With my first paycheck I bought several inexpensive paperback books of poetry, including this one. (I also purchased collections by Langston Hughes, Odgen Nash, and Robert Frost).
But I have never read this brilliant collection straight through, and I am ever so glad I did. It includes one of my top three favorite poems by Cummings: "i am a little church (not a cathedral)" which I only recently discovered. I also have The Complete Poems of E.E. Cummings which was given to me by a fellow bookstore employee when I left the long-gone HBJ Bookstore in downtown San Diego.
If you aren't familiar with Cummings' poetry, this is a terrific collection of 20th-century Modernist poetry. It's a bit odd and mind-stretching at times, but it's very worthwhile. Highly recommend.
But I have never read this brilliant collection straight through, and I am ever so glad I did. It includes one of my top three favorite poems by Cummings: "i am a little church (not a cathedral)" which I only recently discovered. I also have The Complete Poems of E.E. Cummings which was given to me by a fellow bookstore employee when I left the long-gone HBJ Bookstore in downtown San Diego.
If you aren't familiar with Cummings' poetry, this is a terrific collection of 20th-century Modernist poetry. It's a bit odd and mind-stretching at times, but it's very worthwhile. Highly recommend.
January 27, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Working on my goal of reading one non-fiction book per month this year.
I’ve always really loved “ I carry your heart with me” so I was excited to find a copy of this book with all of the authors other poems. Or at least 94 other ones. Confess, I don’t really love the ones that get super Duper creative with grammar and spelling conventions, but there are a lot of really beautiful lines in this book. I also thought it was interesting to see how the lines from poem showed up in other poems. Like he found a phrase that he liked and reused it or used it more than once.
Favorites:
I carry your heart with me
Now air is air and thing is thing
Because you take life in your stride
In time of daffodils
Stand with your lover on the ending earth
I am a little church ( no great cathedral)
Now what were motionless move
Unlove’s the heavenless hell and homeless home
Being to timelessness as it’s to time
Working on my goal of reading one non-fiction book per month this year.
I’ve always really loved “ I carry your heart with me” so I was excited to find a copy of this book with all of the authors other poems. Or at least 94 other ones. Confess, I don’t really love the ones that get super Duper creative with grammar and spelling conventions, but there are a lot of really beautiful lines in this book. I also thought it was interesting to see how the lines from poem showed up in other poems. Like he found a phrase that he liked and reused it or used it more than once.
Favorites:
I carry your heart with me
Now air is air and thing is thing
Because you take life in your stride
In time of daffodils
Stand with your lover on the ending earth
I am a little church ( no great cathedral)
Now what were motionless move
Unlove’s the heavenless hell and homeless home
Being to timelessness as it’s to time
June 7, 2022
5 stars just for one poem:
[i carry your heart with me (i carry it in]
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)
and the rest is pretty neat, too.
[i carry your heart with me (i carry it in]
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)
and the rest is pretty neat, too.
June 17, 2022
No lie, it was difficult for me to follow and understand most of the poems. Cummings plays around with syntax, does not care for traditional rules, creates his own poem structure, and creates his own words. His poems are like puzzles that you have to solve. Each line break, space, and all the words inside the parentheses have to be taken into consideration when trying to decipher a poem. Despite finding the poems difficult to read, I still liked reading them. Some of the poems were quite lovely.
Some poems I enjoyed are: 28, 50, 59, 77, and 92.
Some poems I enjoyed are: 28, 50, 59, 77, and 92.
August 25, 2025
The most playful book of his that I own! His words dance on pages with so many line breaks I wouldn't even dare to try to copy down some of my favorite lines here because I'd surely lose the flow and form. He runs through the season and what it is to love and have joy and feel cold and be still and admire things as people, leaves, wind, flowers, tree leaves pass by. The poems kind of haunt you as you finish them and go to turn another page because he highlights such special things as if you and the only others in that moment will be the ones to remember them
January 28, 2018
"noone and a star stand,am to am
(life to life;breathing to breathing
flaming dream to dreaming flame)
united by perfect nothing:
millionary wherewhens distant,as
reckoned by the unimmortal mind,
these immeasurable mysteries
(human one;and one celestial)stand
soul to soul:freedom to freedom
till her utmost secrecies and his
(dreaming flame by flaming dream)
merge–at not imaginable which
instant born,a(who is neither each
both and)Self adventures deathlessness"
#14.
(life to life;breathing to breathing
flaming dream to dreaming flame)
united by perfect nothing:
millionary wherewhens distant,as
reckoned by the unimmortal mind,
these immeasurable mysteries
(human one;and one celestial)stand
soul to soul:freedom to freedom
till her utmost secrecies and his
(dreaming flame by flaming dream)
merge–at not imaginable which
instant born,a(who is neither each
both and)Self adventures deathlessness"
#14.
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