(3) e.e. cummings – i carry your heart with me (1952)

“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)”

e.e. cummings – modernist free-form poet, delighting in the sheer exuberance of wordplay, idiosyncratic syntax and punctuation. yes – he even made punctuation sing.

“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”

what earns him god-tier ranking is my love of quips and koans, something i strive to emulate in my own writing – and he was the poet of quips and koans. he has some cracking one-liners – some of my favorites in literature or anywhere.

as in “Buffalo Bill’s” – “how do you like your blue-eyed boy Mister Death”

or “pity this busy monster, manunkind” – “we doctors know a hopeless case if – listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go”

while i was tempted to give the top spot to one of his erotic poems, i chose one of his more conventional – or as conventional as they get – love poems. indeed – perhaps his most classic love poem

“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)”

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER)