E E Cummings: The Poet of Love

E E Cummings is a relatively less known poet in English poetry, and even lesser read. Though he may be slightly better known in America - being American - than in England, because it is said that at the time of his death, he was ‘the second most widely read poet in the US, after Robert Frost’. In India, however, he is among the least known as an English poet. And in the Indian academia, particularly in the class-room poetry text books, he is seldom to be seen; mostly because of his  too fanciful, almost tyrannous typographical experimentations in verse – displacement of Capital letters by lowercase letters, putting ‘parts of speech’ categories helter-skelter, – often using  words like ‘if’ or ‘am’ or ‘because’ as nouns – radically flouting traditional rules of grammar and linguistics, his wilful use of punctuation and rules of syntax, sometimes synthesising two or three words into one, and such other shocking innovations, with the obvious intent of presenting his poems as ‘visual objects on the page’; and in this way  “jarring the reader, or forcing him to examine experience with fresh eyes.” In his viw, poetry was a 'process' rather than a 'product'.

Cummings’ unique poetic style was a radical kind of ‘modernism’ based on linguistic experimentation and print stylization. As he himself said “poetry and every other art was, is, and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality”; his poetry was an aggressive instance of ‘idealizing the individual’.

But here we remember Cummings as among the best love poets in the English language, in a selection of his best love poems. According to one critic ‘Love is the propelling force behind a great body of his poetry.” And some of these ‘love poems’ are uniquely erotic. As these chosen examples will will amply prove that they are “great love poems of our time or any time.”

  I have selected these particular poems for translation into Hindi giving them the ‘cultural colour’ of the Hindi language, often ironing out their stiffness in the interest of the suppleness and ease of communication. These Hindi versions can be read (in the same order)  on my parallel blog – vagishwari.blogspot.com. To that extent, the Hindi versions there may appear more as ‘original’ love-lyrics – rathere oblique and slanted - than as faithful translations; perhaps because ‘faithfulness’ in love is both desirable and mercurial! You may enjoy it both ways! 

Love Poems by E E Cummings

1.

Love Is more thicker than forget

Love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

It’s most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

Love is more always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less litter than forgive

It’s most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

 

2.

my love

my love
thy hair is one kingdom
the king whereof is darkness
thy forehead is a flight of flowers
thy head is a quick forest
filled with sleeping birds
thy breasts are swarms of white bees
upon the bough of thy body

thy body to me is April
in those armpits is the approach of spring
thy thighs are white horses yoked to a chariot
of kings
they are the striking of a good minstrel
between them is always a pleasant song

my love
thy head is a casket
of the cool jewel of thy mind
the hair of thy head is one warrior
innocent of defeat

 

thy hair upon thy shoulders is an army
with victory and with trumpets
thy legs are the trees of dreaming
whose fruit is the very eatage of forgetfulness
thy lips are satraps in scarlet
in whose kiss is the combinings of kings
thy wrists are

holy
which are the keepers of the keys of thy blood
thy feet upon thy ankles are flowers in vases
of silver
in thy beauty is the dilemma of flutes
thy eyes are the betrayal
of bells comprehended through incense

 

3.

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                  i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

 

4.

may i feel said he

may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
 
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
 
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she) 

may i stay said he
which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
 
(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

          

5.

i like my body when it is with your

i like my body when it is with your
body.  It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body.  i like what it does,
i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss,  i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh… And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

 

6.

love is a place  

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

 

7.

speaking of love

speaking of love(of
which Who knows the
meaning;or how dreaming
becomes

guess a grassblade
Thinks beyond or
around(as poems are

made)Our picking it. this
caress that laugh
both quickly signify
life’s only half(through

deep weather then
or none let’s feel
all)mind in mind flesh
In flesh succeeding disappear

 

Introduction © Dr BSM Murty

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