Poetry of E. E. Cummings Essay -- Poetry Poem

Lifes Not A ParagraphThroughout his poetry, E. E. Cummings seduces readers deep into a thicket of scrambled words, missing punctuation, and unconventional structure. Within Cummingss poetic bramble, ambiguity leads the reader through what seems at first a confvictimization and winding maze. However, this amazement actually transforms into a path that leads the reader to the center of the thicket where Cummingss message lies one should never allow ones take to be limited by mind and rationality. In order to communicate his belief that emotional experience should triumph over reason, Cummings employs odd juxtapositions, outlandish metaphors, and inversions of traditional grammatical structures that reveal the illogicality of reason. By breaking down the formal boundaries of his poetic structures, Cummings urges his readers to question boundaries of any kind. Indeed, in the same manner Cummingss literary style appears to be ungoverned many of his poems, such as since feeling is fir st and as freedom is a breakfastfood, in turn suggest that emotion provides the compositional fabric for our experience of life, and therefore, emotion itself should never be defined or controlled.In since feeling is first, Cummings urges his reader to reject any attempts to control emotion by using English grammar as one example of the restrictive conventions present in society. By stating that since feeling is first / who pays any attention / to the syntax of things, Cummings suggests that emotion should not be forced to fit into some preconceived framework or mold (1-3). He carries this message throughout the poem by juxtaposing images of the snatch and the concrete--images of emotion and images of English grammar. The abstract na... ...g thicket because he believes the path of the straight and narrow limits the possibilities of experience. Through the unconventionality of his poetic structures, Cummings urges his readers to question order and tradition. He wants his readers to tell apart that reason and rationality are always secondary to emotion, that emotional experience is a free-flowing force that should not be constrained. Cummingss poetry suggests that in order to micturate at the true essence of something, one must look past the commonsensical definition, and not be limited by the syntax of things.Works CitedCummings, E. E. as freedom is a breakfastfood. E. E. Cummings Complete Poems 1904-1962. Ed. George J. Firmage. New York Liveright, 1991. 511.Cummings, E. E. Since feeling is first. E. E. Cummings Complete Poems 1914-1962. Ed. George J. Firmage, New York Liveright, 1991. 291.