(happy) birthday (e.e.)

Today is the birthday of a very important figure in American letters.
On this day in 1894, Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
That makes him a cool umm… 113 years old today.
Does he really even need any sort of introduction?
His accomplishments are remarkable. He turned poetry on its head with his inimitable, unconventional style. Although most of his poetry is demanding, as in, one must read and examine and re-read it to truly “get” it, other poems are so simplistic that I recall reading and “getting” them back when I was in elementary school.
Here is an example of one of my favorites.

you shall above all things...

you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

e.e. cummings

For more of my own commentary on the work of e.e. cummings → CLICK.
Or → HERE.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
-- e.e. cummings –
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