all ignorance toboggans into know
and trudges up to ignorance again:
but winter’s not forever,even snow
melts;and if spring should spoil the game,what then?
all history’s a winter sport or three:
but were it five,i’d still insist that all
history is too small for even me;
for me and you,exceedingly too small.
Swoop(shrill collective myth)into thy grave
merely to toil the scale to shrillerness
per every madge and mabel dick and dave
–tomorrow is our permanent address
and there they’ll scarecely find us(if they do,
we’ll move away still further:into now
by e.e. cummings
…
I discovered e.e. cummings in high school, just when I was bubbling up with angsty ridiculousness and writing my own (bad) poetry. I wrote a term paper on him and his poems and learned a ton, and never stopped enjoying his work. The typographical experiments, the use of dialect in his poems — it was all really exciting and new to me and really struck a chord, apparently.
I own at least four volumes of his work but haven’t read them in a long time, and when the Silent Poetry Reading came up again I went looking for this one poem of his that of course has no title and of which I only remember half a line. Awesome. Naturally, I couldn’t find the poem I was looking for, so I went through one of the volumes (that a friend in high school gave me as a birthday gift) in search of something to add to this event. There are so many great poems of his that I love and had forgotten, and re-reading them put me in a bit of a pickle: which one do I choose? Humanity i love you, and “next to god of course america i are brilliant, but I didn’t want to put a bunch of grumble up today. This poem feels like this moment to me, and there you have it. I hope you enjoy the Silent Poetry Reading happening all over blogs near you.
Attractive section of content. I just stumbled upon your site and in accession capital to assert that I get in fact enjoyed account your blog posts. Anyway I will be subscribing to your augment and even I achievement you access consistently fast.