anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did
I didn’t paste the whole thing because it’s under copyright.
E. E. Cummings is probably one of those poets that I’m not supposed to like, and I’m not sure that I do, but I like this one. I heard it on a Poem of the Day podcast. The sounds and rhythm are important, so read it out loud or listen to the recording.
A few sites compiled interpretations and explanations. I found this comment by John Taber especially interesting (he references the introduction to Collected Poems of 1938 quoted in the Norton Anthology):
“In the thirties, Cummings visited Soviet Russia. The Revolution was still popular. But Cummings didn’t like the emphasis on the collective, and de-emphasis on the individual. He gives this account of his conversation with a Russian dramatist:
‘tell him I drink . . . to the individual’
A pause ‘he says that’s nonsense.’
‘tell him I love nonsense and I drink to nonsense.’ pause
‘he’s very angry. He says you are afraid’
‘tell him I am afraid to be afraid’
noisemusic, a waiter’s glaring. ‘He believes you are mad.’
‘Tell him a madman named noone says, that someone is and anyone isn’t, and all the believing universe cannot transform anyone who isn’t into someone who is.’”
This is pretty random, but in 1967, George Lucas was inspired to make a 6-minute short based on the poem.
