e. e. cummings

He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1894. He took a bachelor's degree in 1914 and a master's degree in 1915. Cummings served as an military officer in World War I, and he was one of very few to serve in an Ally's stockade. In conversation, Cummings was overheard saying that he didn't hate the Germans, and it infuriated the French with whom he was serving. Attempts were made to no avail to have him state his hatred for the Germans. He would state only that he liked the French very much but did not hate the Germans. As a result, he was court-martialed, sentenced, and served time in a French stockade.

When I was trying to decide what to settle on a subject for my M. A. thesis in English, I first settled on Jonathan Swift. I love satire as much as I detest pompousness. But I soon discovered that I wouldn't be able to spend much time with Swift's dark moods. I asked for advice, and one of my professors suggested E. E. Cummings. I agreed and set about my business, beginning with the complete poems. The title of my thesis is Prosody as Meaning in the Poetry of E. E. Cummings. And if you know anything at all about Cummings and about poetry, you can see how such an approach just might work. Not only did it work, it was nearly ready-made. And one of my thesis readers, the former Chair of the English Department, called my house and left a messsage that it was one of the best he'd read in his 25 years in the department. It's one of my proudest accomplishments.

One surprise for me in my reading of and research about E. E. Cummings was how absolutely lovely some of his lyrical poetry is, as romantic as the best of them. His iconoclasm is also to my taste. It was a period of hard work but true satisfaction. And when I came up with my then tentative approach, I found out who the leading Cummings scholar was, and fortunately for me, he was still alive. So I telephoned him and asked him what he thought about my idea. He told me it sounded interesting and asked me to send him a copy when I finished it. I did, and he reviewed it positively in Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society, of which I was invited to become a charter member, retroactively. The most pleasing thing that this wonderful scholar said about my thesis was that it is "heartfelt."

Years later, during a trip to Manhattan for my wife's company's Christmas party, I was able to visit with this man who had written the first book-length study of Cummings' poetry and who had known Cummings personally, both Harvard alums. I found it a comment on our society that such a world-class scholar couldn't later get a job at Harvard back then because he's Jewish, though he was pleased to announce that the school was actively pursuing his son, a philosopher. I had him autograph the three books he had written about Cummings and spent a very pleasant two hours or so with him. Later, I visited Cummings's long-time home at 14 Patchin Place. It was during the holiday season, and the city was decorated and festive, so lovely that afternoon of crystal sunshine, blue skies, and bare trees. And the memory shines

Happy Birthday Estlin!