About the Author

E. E. Cummings (1894–1962) was among the most influential, widely read, and revered modernist poets. He was also a playwright, a painter, and a writer of prose. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he studied at Harvard University and, during World War I, served with an ambulance corps in France. He spent three months in a French detention camp and subsequently wrote The Enormous Room, a highly acclaimed criticism of World War I. After the war, Cummings returned to the States and published his first collection of poetry, Tulips & Chimneys, which was characterized by his innovative style: pushing the boundaries of language and form while discussing love, nature, and war with sensuousness and glee. He spent the rest of his life painting, writing poetry, and enjoying widespread popularity and success. George J. Firmage edited many works by Cummings, including Erotic Poems; Complete Poems, 1904– 1962; and Fairy Tales.

Reviews

"Cummings was one of the most spirited and original American writers of the 20th century."
*The Wall Street Journal*

"Mr. Cummings is not merely the perfect acrobat or the genius carefully, yet easily and very skillfully inhabiting everything which we really are and everything which we never quite live. His intention is not to be serious, but to be very serious and get away with it."
*Louis Zukofsky - Exile*

"In prose as much as in poetry, Cummings’s lines are a vehicle for typographical leaps of daring, experiments with and distortions of syntax. Even at its most controlled, it is distinctively a poet’s prose, looking to forge a new sound from language."
*The San Franciso Chronicle*