National Poetry Month - twofer!

[maeveenroute]

I have been informed all over my friends list that April is National Poetry Month, and that it is customary to celebrate by posting a poem a day. I'm already late, though this should not surprise you if you know me at all

Comments

[liadan_giolla_b]

I don't believe that is by e.e. cummings. There is punctuation and capitals.

I like the Parker poem, it contrasts nicely with the Bible quote I recently sent you. Sigh, I'm afraid I believe in both the poems.

[maeveenroute]

For those of you following along at home, the verse is:

"There are three or four things I cannot understand:
How eagles fly so high or snakes crawl on rocks,
How ships sail the ocean or people fall in love."
-- Proverbs 30:18,19

As for the cummings poem - I did read it in a cummings anthology, but this was a version I found online, and I think the formatting has been altered. That said, I've seen things written in his own hand that use conventional capitalization and punctuation. (In fact, he capitalized his name!)

Microsoft Word strikes again!

[literate78]

Looks like maybe Word Autocorrect got to cummings with its 19th-century notion that the start of all lines must be capitalized. Drives me crazy!

Cummings...

[liadan_giolla_b]

Cummings (whose name is properly spelled with capital letters--it is his poetry that is mostly lowercase), used capital letters sparingly, mostly in reference to God. He also used quite a bit of punctuation.

That said, the poem has been rendered completely wrong. The poem appears on page 963 of his Complete Poems, and textually appears quite unlike the version above.

[anonymous]

Awesome post. Really enjoyed reading your blog posts.