It’s been a busy week and although I did write a handful of new poems (thanks, April Halprin Wayland, for a delightfully productive class on Wednesday!), they aren’t ready to see the light of day. So, instead, I give you …
… Another spring poem!
This one is from the incomparably weird and sometimes wonderful e.e. cummings:
Spring is like a perhaps hand
by e.e. cummings
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully
…. (Read the rest here, at Poets.org.)
~~~~~~~~~~
The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by the lovely and talented Cathy Stenquist.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.
19 comments:
Karen, it was good to "see" you are April's workshop. I had an unexpected disruption during it, but I tried to keep listening in. I will go back and work on my cornerstone project. It was a great workshop, though. I wish I would have been able to be more present throughout. Thank you for e.e. cummings' weird and wonderful poem about spring. (I love your description of him.)
Spring is indeed a "perhaps hand," rearranging the blooms in my garden a little bit here, a little bit there...raising up the poppies while the bluebells wave farewell, puffing out some iris perfume over the coral bells, exploding a clematis bloom to encourage the peonies along.
'Changing everything carefully' …. I like that. Thank you for sharing this one, Karen. It is a long time since I have read e e cummings …
Denise, it was good to see you too! I was going to drop you an email to say so, but it’s been one of those weeks for my brain. :) I’ll be going back to my cornerstone project too. I have enjoyed the fruits that Wednesday’s session has been bearing!
Oh, Mary Lee, your comment — which I see, smell, hear — is a spring poem! I love that.
elli, I haven’t read him in a while. I was obsessed with him many years ago, in college/in my 20s. When he’s wonderful, he’s really wonderful.
Wouldn't be spring without a Cummings poem! This is one of my favorites, so thanks for sharing it this week. A "perhaps hand" is a brilliant way of describing spring's careful, gentle, tentativeness bringing on dramatic changes. Love the light green leaves on the trees -- first ones so delicate before deepening into darker colors, heavier during summer.
Hi Karen, sounds like you had a very busy week and how wonderful to take an online class with April Halprin Wayland:) e.e. cummings poem is a perfect, shake-it-up kind of poem, "a fraction of flower," "an inch of air," that probably reflects my spring cleaning, lol. Thanks for sharing the inspiration and hope you came away from class with some poetry drafts that are inspiring you:) Jill
Ooh I am going to be playing with "spring is like a perhap______" now. Thank you! xo And yay for April's class, which I'm sure was amazing, because April is amazing!
*Jama, it’s a marvelous simile, isn’t it? Bringing the tentative, changing nature of spring to the forefront so beautifully.
* Jill, your spring cleaning connection made me laugh. :) Yes, I left the class with ideas in hand, so I count it a success!
* Irene, it makes a terrific prompt, doesn’t it? April’s class was wonderful and she spoke so highly of YOU! If anyone in that class wasn’t aware of your work, they are surely seeking it out now after April’s glowing and deserved praise of both your work and your generosity in the Kidlitosphere.
I didn't know that particular Cummings poem, so thank you. Sorry I missed April's class. Sounds amazing!
I'm with Rose. I didn't know that poem. So, thanks. "Perhaps hand," what an interesting term. The arranging and arranging makes me giggle. Spring can do that.
Karen- E.E. Cummings experimentation with format and punctuation was interesting to see. I would love someone to sit with me and analyze a poem like that. I want to understand his intention with the enjambment and spacing. Often, I am not sure how to read poems laid out like this. Anyone else? Thanks for saharing:)
Rose and Linda, I don’t think I’d seen this one either, at least not before this week! I showed it to my husband and he hadn’t seen it either. We’ve discussed the poetry of e.e. cummings a lot and we were both surprised we’d never seen this one!
Cathy, yes, he’s so interesting and full of paradox.
I like <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/e-e-cummings”>this article</a> at The Poetry Foundation. It covers so much, from his genuine love poems (including the erotic ones that were designed to shake people up), to his desire to be subversive with poetry in every way. Here’s a quote from the article:
Norman Friedman explained in his E. E. CUMMINGS: THE GROWTH OF A WRITER that Cummings’ innovations “are best understood as various ways of stripping the film of familiarity from language in order to strip the film of familiarity from the world. Transform the word, he seems to have felt, and you are on the way to transforming the world.”
Shoot, I messed up the hyperlink. Let me try again:
Here.
Karen, I've always liked e e cummings because he always offers a surprise. Thanks for sharing this spring poem of his. Interestingly, it's made me think of hands. Like Cathy, I'm not sure what to make of it all. Makes me think of "arranging" my life right now. Thanks.
That last line is so uncanny “without breaking anything” makes me smile, like unexpected changes in Spring, thanks for sharing it Karen!
Spring is indeed a time of change. and much welcome after a long winter!
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