My beautiful (huh?) text and background colors (like this one for "Other people's poems") won't work when you use Preformatted Text. Damn it. Try again some other day.
Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
Ron, thanks for posting these. I've never read them. I need to get some of his collections as I've enjoyed everything of his I've ever read.
ReplyDeleteI was crazy for cummings when I was in high school. Over the years I lost my collected works and have drifted away from them for a long time, so I felt like these were newly discovered myself! They were more experimental when I first read them, but they are still very good and sometimes much fun!
ReplyDeleteI recognized the first poem, but not the second.
ReplyDeleteCummings was an impressive rebel poet in his youth; but he was ultimately a cultural conservative, and not in the best way. I confess, I found him disappointing after reading more about his life, and about his later work. I suppose that happens, quite predictably, with many people. He did do his part for genuine art better than almost anyone else could have, but it was painful to see that he never became what I hoped he would have become.
I honestly suspect that a few years at hard labor, in the joint or out, would have altered his viewpoint. Or perhaps a childhood of actual poverty. I get the impression that he, and many other artistic and literary "icons," never quite had to face up to such harsh realities.
Hot damn, this guy is good - I've never read these before.
ReplyDeleteJoe, I don't remember ever knowing very much about cummings' personal life and you sort of make me dread to know, though I'll look it up and see. It's never too helpful to look too deeply into the lives of favorite artists. You'll find out bad things about most of them--human things, of course, and inhuman ones, too! I could name names, but why bother. Maybe that's another blog post some day!
ReplyDeleteThat second poem is one of his first examples of "being born again"
ReplyDeleteI remember ee from long years ago in my youth. I also liked Rod McKuen!
Oog, death to Rod McKuen! Too much pablum.
ReplyDelete