I personally liked e.e. Cummings’ poetry. Now, to talk about the specific poem that we read in class entitled by the anthologists as “In Just.”
The style that Cummings uses should appeal to anyone who doesn’t care about formalities within the structure of poetry, nor does he really focus that on grammar or spacing within his writing. A good example being how the names “eddieandbill” (line 6) are run together to signify how little kids talk. For me, Cummings was so interesting because he writes as if he realizes that there is no exact science that a writer has to use within the process. Really, Cummings is an English teacher’s worst nightmare with all those words that he ran together, lack of correct punctuation, and lack of correct capitalization. Plus the phrase “puddle-wonderful” or “mud-luscious” (line 4) every day The guy doesn’t even like to capitalize his own name or the word I, now admittedly it’s hard to tell whether he does this so people will take notice of his work or if he is doing it a way of showing humility. His writing shows that he doesn’t take himself too seriously even if he may write about a serious topic.
It’s hard to place Cummings in a particular style. Of the styles that were discussed you certainly can’t call him a lyricist, because his work does not necessarily deal with emotions or at least that isn’t a major theme of his even though he does write about feelings. He doesn’t seem to write ballad, nothing seems to be rather catchy like a song might be. A sonnet is far too rigidly constructed especially when talking about Cummings, even though he did write sonnets such as “the Cambridge ladies who lived in furnished souls”. Once again the sentences in this lack capitalization. They just don’t seem as formulaic as say Shakespeare’s poetry. Concrete doesn’t really describe Cummings either in the case of “In Just,” because it really is not about an amusing story because he doesn’t really tell any funny jokes even though it is a story about a fun memory from a childhood. On the edge of the free-verse genre is where Cummings should probably be put as far as I can determine. This is why Cummings is fun, you can’t pigeonhole his work, and it is unique and unpredictable. Sure, a lot of the time it’s hard to figure out what he’s talking about because some of his work seems to just be words simply in no particular order, but that’s what makes the poems different. The subject in “In Just” is about having a joyous time in your youth instead of something morbid or about some long lost love and that joy in poetry is something that isn’t written about enough in the poetry that is often assigned in classes.
The poem that is not one of my favorites is “To Autumn” by John Keats. This us the second time it has been assigned to me in a class and it is still hard for me to understand. It always seemed to me to be about a guy who was watching out the window of his granary the leaves fall and to wait for autumn to begin. “Thee sitting carelessly on a granary floor” (line 14) is what gave me this theory. He talks about the fruit that begins to grow on the vines that is very ripe ostensibly. “And fill the fruit with the ripeness to the core.” (line 6) He talks about how spring is gone. “Where are songs of Spring?” (line 23) The reason this poem is not interesting in my view is because it’s hard for me to understand. Help fill me in on what this poem is about.
