22 and 50 Poems

by E.E. Cummings

Appearing for the first time in a Liveright paperback edition, 22 and 50 Poems combines twenty-two new poems from Cummings's Collected Poems (1938) with his 50 Poems (1940). Included are such favorites as "My father moved through dooms of love" and "anyone lived in a pretty how town," along with the usual Cummings dazzle of satirical epigrams, love poems, and syntactical anagrams.This edition is published in a uniform format with Is 5, Tulips & Chimneys, ViVa, XAIPE, and No Thanks.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published February 5, 2001

About the author

Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 1894. He began writing poems as early as 1904 and studied Latin and Greek at the Cambridge Latin High School.

He received his BA in 1915 and his MA in 1916, both from Harvard University. His studies there introduced him to the poetry of avant-garde writers, such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound.

In 1917, Cummings published an early selection of poems in the anthology Eight Harvard Poets. The same year, Cummings left the United States for France as a volunteer ambulance driver in World War I. Five months after his assignment, however, he and a friend were interned in a prison camp by the French authorities on suspicion of espionage (an experience recounted in his novel, The Enormous Room) for his outspoken anti-war convictions.

After the war, he settled into a life divided between houses in rural Connecticut and Greenwich Village, with frequent visits to Paris. He also traveled throughout Europe, meeting poets and artists, including Pablo Picasso, whose work he particularly admired.

In 1920, The Dial published seven poems by Cummings, including "Buffalo Bill ’s.” Serving as Cummings’ debut to a wider American audience, these “experiments” foreshadowed the synthetic cubist strategy Cummings would explore in the next few years.

In his work, Cummings experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling, and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly idiosyncratic means of poetic expression. Later in his career, he was often criticized for settling into his signature style and not pressing his work toward further evolution. Nevertheless, he attained great popularity, especially among young readers, for the simplicity of his language, his playful mode and his attention to subjects such as war and sex.

The poet and critic Randall Jarrell once noted that Cummings is “one of the most individual poets who ever lived—and, though it sometimes seems so, it is not just his vices and exaggerations, the defects of his qualities, that make a writer popular. But, primarily, Mr. Cummings’s poems are loved because they are full of sentimentally, of sex, of more or less improper jokes, of elementary lyric insistence.”

During his lifetime, Cummings received a number of honors, including an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship at Harvard, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 1958, and a Ford Foundation grant.

At the time of his death, September 3, 1962, he was the second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost. He is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.

source: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/e-...

Reviews

[Anastasia]

το «δεν ξερω αν βγαζει νοημα αυτο που λεω» σε ποιητικη συλλογη

βεβαια ο καμινγκς ξερει παραπολυκαλα τι λεει, απλα μας παει μια βολτα στο αλλοκοσμο και μας αφηνει να το βγαλουμε μονοι μας το νοημα,και απ’ οπου θελουμε,
και στην πορεια μπλοφαρει και λιγο γιατι παιχνιδι ιζ λαιφ (και ποιηση, απαρεντλι) (και οντως)


μπορει να υπερβαλλω, μπορει να εντυπωσιαζομαι ευκολα, μπορει να φταιει που ειχα μια τελεια αναγνωστικη εμπειρια γιατι το διαβασα κατα κυριο λογο σε λυωνεζικα καφε με καταλογους για τσαι που ηταν ολοκληρα βιβλια ενω το τετραπερατο ξαδερφι μου διαβαζε ευρωπαικο δικαιο, μπορει να συνεχιζω να υπερβαλλω, μπορει να εχει καταλαγιασει σε δυο μερες, μπορει πολλα

ε δεν με νοιαζει


το λατρεψα

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

i will not capitalize for cummings. these poems are genius. he can stab your soul with his words. out of nowhere, you're just reading and boom. it was my first time reading the poem, my father moved through dooms of love and it brought me to tears. it's beautiful. i would also like to say that was the best damn introduction i haver ever read. wow.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's much more to Cummings than a blatant disregard for capitalization (though he did despise capital letters and fought for their removal from keyboards and label makers all his life). I've always felt his work was akin to human emotion and life experiences distilled down in some test tube, then held up to a light. There's a fragmented, cut-up feel to his work that makes me think of a super computer trying to solve all the grand riddles of life.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a student at Harvard, Cummings was introduced to the works of avant garde poets and writers, such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound. He developed an interested that led to the development of his style, which ignored conventional grammar and syntax.

This collection is a marriage of Cummings's 50 POEMS (1940) with 22 poems from his COLLECTED POEMS (1938). I can't say why the publisher decided to combine these poems, as there is no apparent connection between the 50 poems and the 22 poems, aside from providing an interesting selection of Cummings's poetry.

The reader will immediately notice the poet's unconventional use of capitalization and punctuation. Indeed, capitalization is infrequent, and punctuation is sporadic. Both are utilized by the poet for deliberate emphasis rather than adherence to grammatical conventions...

(ing)
comes ex
-pert-
Ly expand:grO
- so little he is (pg. 22)

s ly)tuck.s.its(ghostsoul sheshape)
- warped this perhapsy (pg. 47)

young Up
floatingly clothes tumbledish
olD(with
- grEEn's d (pg. 91)


The reader will also appreciate the visual interest created by the poet's arrangement...

ask
 her
 ask
 when
 (ask and
 ask
 and ask
again and) ask a

- (will you teach a (pg.50)


The poet frequently emphasizes the letter "e", always doubled". It would appear that the poet is signing his work...

down with the human soul
and anything else uncanned
for everyone carries canopeners
in Ever-Ever Land
- of Ever-Ever Land i speak (pg. 17)

ise how e
mpty park bundl
e of what man can
- nor woman (pg. 23)

sp-
inwhirlpin
- wh
EEling
;a!who,
- warped this perhapsy (pg. 47)

grEEn's d
- grEEn's d (pg. 91)


Indeed, this is one of the poet's trademarks. Many of his poems are like puzzles. The reader is required to put words together, words that the poet has fragmented. In some cases, the reader is required to take apart words that the poet has put together (i.e., removed spacing). By fragmenting words, the poet often creates new meanings. In addition, by fragmenting words Cummings engages the reader...

a

ppeare
d leavi
ng on its

elf pro
pped uprigh
t that in this o
ther w

ise...
- nor woman (pg. 23)

w an d
ering

in sin

g
ular untheknowndulous s

pring
- nouns to nouns (pg. 61)

moon
's whis-
per
in sunset
- wherelings whenlings (pg. 65)


As much as the poet is known for his innovative approach, many of his poems adhere to older forms. One of the poems he is best known for ("my father moved through dooms of love") is written in verse. But my favourite of the verse poems are the ones that combine the old and the modern, poems such as "" in which the poet intentionally misspells words so that the words not only rhyme but mirror each other...

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold
- my father moved through dooms of love (pg. 77)

to multiple because and why
dividing thens and nows
and adding and(i understand)
is hows to hump a cows
- the way to hump a cow is not (pg. 52)


Regarding the content of Cummings's poems, the poet often writes about knowledge/wisdom, freedom, and love...

that you should ever think,may god forbid you
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.
- you shall above all things be glad and young (pg. 35)


One of my favourite stanzas...

down with hell and heaven
and all the religious fuss
infinity pleased our parents
one inch looks good to us
- of Ever-Ever Land i speak (pg. 17)

Another of my favourite stanzas...

science must
bait laws with
stars to catch telescopes
- beware beware beware (pg. 29)

Another of my favourite stanzas...

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
- you shall above all things be glad and young (pg. 35)

[Anders · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Cummings a lot but this collection wasn't super inspiring. It did have a few good ones though.

My father moved through dooms of love, as freedom is a breakfastfood, love is the every only god, may my heart always be open to little

[And Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really sure what to rate this. First time reading e.e. Cummings and mostly it made me feel dumb because I had literally no idea what was going on ever. There were a few poems in there that I liked and that I THINK I got? but honestly who knows.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

red-rag and pink-flag
blackshirt and brown
strut-mince and stink-brag
have all come to town

some like it shot
and some like it hung
and some like it in the twot
nine months young

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I say it as a prayer - may I always recognize and have gratitude for all the little things E.E. Cummings saw, cherished, and adored

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Im afraid this is too avant for my garde

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good
if
weird
poems
by
Cummings&
who (?)
lik
es
do
ing#
stuff
like*
this.
Wild
isn't
it?

(And Goodreads is forcing me to put each line flush left, which Cummings NEVER does.)

[Michael Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book includes 22 poems that had been published in Cummings' "Collected(wronlgly:rightly Selected) Poems," as he called it plus the book 50 poems, published later. Their is also a whimsical introduction addressed to his wife. This volume contains a couple poems that are often anthologized, most notably "my father moved through dooms of love."

You get what you expect from Cummings here, and the journey is mostly enjoyable. This book may be worth study if for no other reason than the poet's mastery of the sonnet.

I think my favorite poem in the collection is "you shall above all things be glad and young" which contains the following lines: "I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing/than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance". Wonderful Cummings wonder.

[Tommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find this poetry infinitely frustrating, but when I figure one out I feel like I've climbed Everest.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but I think over respected.

[Michael X · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is e.e. doing what he does best.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

this collection of poem, like all of his others, is like stepping into a different world of grammar and syntax - refreshing.

[Michelle (Fluttering Butterflies) · Rating 2 out of 5]

...I just don't get it, sorry. I'd heard that ee cummings is an acquired taste and I understand why that is said now.