pity this busy monster, manunkind -- e e cummings

(Poem #57) pity this busy monster, manunkind pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease: your victim (death and life safely beyond) plays with the bigness of his littleness --- electrons deify one razorblade into a mountainrange; lenses extend unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish returns on its unself. A world of made is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this fine specimen of hypermagical ultraomnipotence. We doctors know a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go -- e e cummings

[<http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps.htm> for justification]

Cummings is by no means an easy poet to read. His poems are somewhat dense
and cryptic, and often require several readings before one can truly
appreciate them. However, they are always worth the effort, as is amply
evidenced by the poem above - one of my favourites for the sheer beauty of
its language. Note the plethora of invented compounds (something Cummings
excels at - and there's a lot more to it than sticking two randomwords
together), the almost surreal yet wonderfully nail-on-the-head phrases, and
the way the unusual formatting enhances the poem rather than annoying the
reader.

Though this is superficially similar to the Whitman poem, there is a
significant difference. The critical attitude and the somewhat sarcastic
tone do not change the fact that Cummings *has* appreciated the marvels
inherent in science and technology. This is a whole nother fallacy - not
that Science is a dull grey blanket thrown over the face of Nature, but
rather that it is a glitteringly and dangerously seductive trap into which
mankind - sorry, man*un*kind, is walking with his eyes wide open. Actually,
it's hard to call this one a fallacy - the view is widely held, and not only
by non-scientists. Needless to say, I disagree, but that's another matter -
it doesn't affect the poem's value in any way.

Biographical Notes:

  Cummings, E.E.
  b. Oct. 14, 1894, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.
  d. Sept. 3, 1962, North Conway, N.H.

  in full EDWARD ESTLIN CUMMINGS, American poet and painter who first
  attracted attention, in an age of literary experimentation, for his
  eccentric punctuation and phrasing. The spirit of New England dissent and
  of Emersonian "Self-Reliance" underlies the urbanized Yankee colloquialism
  of Cummings' verse. Cummings' name is often styled "e.e. cummings" in the
  mistaken belief that the poet legally changed his name to lowercase
  letters only. Cummings used capital letters only irregularly in his verse
  and did not object when publishers began lowercasing his name, but he
  himself capitalized his name in his signature and in the title pages of
  original editions of his books.

  Cummings received his B.A. degree from Harvard University in 1915 and was
  awarded his M.A. in 1916. During World War I he served with an ambulance
  corps in France, where he was interned for a time in a detention camp
  because of his friendship with an American who had written letters home
  that the French censors thought critical of the war effort. This
  experience deepened Cummings' distrust of officialdom and was symbolically
  recounted in his first book, The Enormous Room (1922).

  In the 1920s and '30s he divided his time between Paris, where he studied
  art, and New York City. His first book of verse was Tulips and Chimneys
  (1923), followed by XLI Poems and & (1925); in the latter year he received
  the Dial award for distinguished service to American letters.

  In 1927 his play him was produced by the Provincetown Players in New York
  City. During these years he exhibited his paintings and drawings, but they
  failed to attract as much critical interest as his writings. Eimi (1933)
  recorded, in 432 pages of experimental prose, a 36-day visit to the Soviet
  Union, which confirmed his individualist repugnance for collectivism. He
  published his discussions as the Charles Eliot Norton lecturer on poetry
  at Harvard University (1952-53) under the title i: six nonlectures (1953).

  In all he wrote 12 volumes of verse, assembled in his two-volume Complete
  Poems (1968).

        -- EB

Assessment:

  Cummings' moods were alternately satirical and tough or tender and
  whimsical. He frequently used the language of the streets and material
  from burlesque and the circus. His erotic poetry and love lyrics had a
  childlike candour and freshness.

        -- EB

  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 towards 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. At the time of his death in 1962, he was the second
  most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost.

        -- The Academy of American Poets
        <[broken link] http://www.poets.org/lit/poet/eecumfst.htm>

  ...In addition, readers' enjoyment and comprehension of the poetry will be
  greatly increased by a good working knowledge of Cummings' life. To an
  unusual degree, Cummings attempted to inhabit the self that he depicted in
  his poems.

        -- Spring (The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society)

m.