Since feeling is first
By Grace Kohut
It all started when I was looking for inspiration. Literary inspiration. It was the autumn
of 2007 and I had an essay due the next day—and a bad case of writer’s block. Not
knowing what else to do, I decided to copy down a quote I particularly liked in the novel
I was reading. So turning to the back of an old journal that I had found in my room, I
began to write at the top of the last page:
I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the
things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist,
and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has
started. – Hemingway, “A Farewell to Arms”
There is a particularly powerful feeling you experience as you write letter by letter, the
words of a master. It’s as if you are being let in on a well-kept secret—gaining access to
some superior brain, some superior knowledge. You are essentially taking a walk in their
shoes, but instead you are sitting at their desk and writing with their pen. When I wrote
Hemingway that day, I felt as though that this was the start of something important—
and that if I were to continue, I should do it right. So, evening out the mood, I write:
The world laughs in flowers
– ee cummings
I started writing quotes by all different authors from all over the world (and from all
over time). Millay, Dostoevsky, Neruda, Gandhi, Emerson, de Kooning, I’ve been them
all. But then there was e.e. cummings. I first read cummings the year prior to my quote
book.
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
At the time, I didn’t really get it but I knew I liked it. I liked it
enough to look up his other poems and what I found fascinated
me. I started with his easier poems—the ones that sort of
followed a recognizable poem pattern (however, those never
made it to my quote book) 1. When I began branching out, I
soon realized that his poetry was something that could not be
fully grasped at first... but could be nonetheless. Those are the
ones that adorn my quote book. So I read more and more; I
couldn’t get enough. I started to feel like a real aficionado. And
then I came across his essay: An Introduction from New
Poems. It was in a difficult font so I copy/pasted the essay into
a word document. What I found is to your right.
I remember this experience vividly because it felt like a slap in the face. Setting aside my
studies, I set forth to translate this foreign dialect of English (e.e.nglish). I saw it as my
1
Such as: “I carry your heart”
1
Grace Kohut
*
since feeling is first
*
October 20, 2010
final step to fluency. Sitting down at my computer, I began my dissection. The first thing
I did was to go through and eliminate the red squiggles. I inserted dashes, put synonyms
next to big words, added quotations to newly formed words and concepts, and separated
punctuation with spaces. Then I broke down each sentence until I could safely say I
knew what the heck was going on. Sentences such as: “If mostpeople were to be born
twice they'd improbably call it dying--,” those were the easy ones… The harder ones
would take much, much more time dissecting—sentences such as, “They mean the latest
and closest plural approximation to singular prenatal passivity which science, in its
finite but unbounded wisdom, has succeeded in selling their wives.” What? I couldn’t
tell you what that means now but I could have that day.
A lot of the times people try to immediately breakdown his words—to understand. The
problem that most run into is that he refuses to adhere to the grammar that we learned
in grade school and thus requires a foreign and different form of interpretation. It is
possible to understand but most people don’t care to put in the effort. I cared. By writing
his words into my spiral journal, I not only felt his words come to life, I was learning the
language in which he created. His poems and his words are a challenge. He challenges
his readers to learn an entirely new language. And thus through my readings and
endless copying, I have finally become fluent.
This is the quote I copied that day:
You and I wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it becoming.
Life,for eternal us,is now’and now is much to busy being a little more than
everything to seem anything,catastrophic included. Life,for
mostpeople,simply isn’t. – ee cummings
Over the years I’ve gathered a specific way of writing my quote book. For instance, I still
mainly write from the back of the book towards the front. Since this is not how English
is typically written, I’ve had to be very precise of the size of each quote. If the quote
won’t fit on my current page I start at the top of the “next page” (which is technically the
previous one)—filling the spaces later.
Why you may ask? I wasn’t quite sure at the time. Maybe it was to stay true to that very
first day I wrote the words of Hemingway. I can be loyal like that sometimes. But then I
started writing certain quotes in the front.
One day I came across “All the Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss. Something about the
simplicity of the structure mixed with the insight of the content-matter really (really)
struck me. Since it is a pretty long piece, I attempted to pick apart which section I would
use for my quote book. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t isolate anything while still retaining
the effect. So that’s when I decided to write the longer and completed works in the front
of my book. 2
I think my developing style in copying quotes is largely related to e.e. cummings. But
before I get into that I feel as though I should pause and explain some things about his
2
I’m currently writing “Renascence” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
2
writing—about his grammar. First of all, in order to understand any poem by ee
cummings you have to throw out every rule you were taught in grade-school: about
grammar, sentence structure, basic prose-reading—all of it. You have to push word
labels to the side of your brain for these labels, or rather word groups, spill over to other
groups and are mixed together. Verbs become nouns, nouns become adjectives3, and so
on and so forth. Second of all, he personifies concepts and makes them capable of
possession and he often uses multiple prepositions to mean one thing. Third of all, he
disregards punctuation and capitalization, as we know it, altogether.
Lastly, he invents his own words with fairly common parts of words. To take examples
from the essay above: imperson, undoom, inframortality (see appendix). While you can
often guess at their meaning, you most likely have to have read multiple works before
you understand certain references. For example, here are some definitions /
explanations of some of this vocab in this poem. Undying simply means, the act of being
alive without truly living. 4 While that seems straightforward enough, here’s another: one
times one. In previous poems he’s touched on this concept of one: “one’s not half two,
it’s two halves of one,” “we’re a wonderful one times one” and “we are so both and
oneful.” 5 He looks at life through multiplication. It is not 1+1=2 but rather 1x1=1.
The thing about cummings is that he does not adhere to standard or even experimental
poem structure. He never gives written “cues” as to how to read it. This is why most
people think his poems “are impossible to read aloud.” This is where I beg to differ—for
I have broken that code. Of course I get caught up sometimes, but through all my
practice, I can recite cummings with ease. What’s the secret? It’s simple. You have to feel
the work in order to read it—feeling is first. You have to know exactly what is being said,
or rather, communicated. You have to adhere to e.e.cummian grammar and the only
way to do so is to have a deep understanding of his work.
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12
13
14
15
16
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(once like a spark)
if strangers meet
life begins–
not poor not rich
(only aware)
kind neither
nor cruel
(only complete)
i not not you
not possible
only truthful
–truthfully, once
if strangers (who
deep our most are
selves) touch:
forever
(and so to dark)
3
“For whom create is less than have”
4
See “I’m so glad and very”
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How to be read:
Once like a spark… if strangers meet,
life begins; not poor, not rich—only aware.
Kind neither (nor cruel)—only complete.
I notnot you (not possible): only truthful.
…truthfully (once) if strangers —who (deep)
our(most are)selves—touch…
forever….
… and so to dark
See poems (respectively): “one’s not two, it’s two halves of one” “if everything happens that can’t be done”, and
“I’m so glad and very”
3
Grace Kohut
*
since feeling is first
*
October 20, 2010
This was my first favorite poem by e.e. cummings. When I first came across it, I
definitely couldn’t read it the way I can now—and I didn’t entirely understand it, as I
understand it now. Next to the poem is my best attempt at breaking it down in a way
you can read it as it was intended to be read. Before line 12 and after line 2, it is suppose
to be very staccato (the parentheses being the only exception)6. Once you hit
“truthfully” (the first three syllable word) everything slows down until it stops altogether
at “forever” (the last three syllable word).
To me, e.e. cummings has slowed down time. It beings with “once like a spark,” the
lighting of a match. Then he proceeds to describe, or rather capture, what exactly
happens when two strangers make passing eye contact. It is a complete moment of
awareness. It is not nice or mean—there’s no time for that. There are no false pretenses.
It is the most truthful moment that exists: human to human. But once the eye contact is
interrupted or when the glance moves to something more, the match is blown out.
So, how would you classify this writing style? What it comes down to is that you have to
give something up in order to get something in return. Reading cummings is a mutual
exchange between reader and writer. To him, those who cannot read his work don’t
deserve to. He didn’t want just anyone enjoying his work—he was too grumpy to allow
that to happen. Why should he give out his brilliance for free?
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My writing style within my quote book is something I hold dear to me. Not only am I
putting my twist on a collection of other people’s works, but I’m also, in a way, making it
more private. Think about it, if someone were to find this book and try to interpret
something about me from it, they wouldn’t be able to. My book doesn’t adhere to the
typical linear path of time. Only I can recognize the clusters of quotes that represent
feelings I felt and at what time I felt them. Who would guess that near the back of the
book Dostoevsky’s words were written when I graduated from my K-12 school in 2008?
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Lines 1, 5, 8
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Part of my senior photography project: a collection called “self-portraits” (2008). I am writing in my quote book.
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Even if we are occupied with important things and even if we attain honor or
fall into misfortune, still let us remember how good it once was here, when we
were all together, united by a good and a kind feeling which made us perhaps
better than we are.
And how could anyone know that one year later and eighteen pages prior, I wrote this
one:
rivers
like oceans
oceans
like answers
questions
in cloud forms
rain drops
in stanzas 8
Would you have inferred that this was written the moment I realized I was in love for
the first time? I think you get my point. While what I’m doing with this book and
cummings’s with his poetry are different on many levels they both still deal with this
idea of a need for granted permission. If e.e. cummings had a diary, maybe it would look
like my quote book.
Everything I write today was never learned in a classroom but rather through my own
use of my quote book—and I think that’s how cummings would have wanted it. I have
never read a single thing about his life and yet know so much—through my reading,
writing, rereading, and rewriting. Sometimes you can know more about a person when
you familiarize yourself with their life’s work rather than when you read a biography. By
doing so you end up getting to know him rather than just knowing facts. You can learn a
lot about your own self as well. I sure have. cummings’s life’s work was his own
autobiography, and I am still learning and discovering and living: about him and about
myself. And I encourage you to do so too. We both do.
Acknowledgments:
I’d like to thank everyone from class for giving me the time to go over my essay in class.
This has been something personal to me and you all made me feel comfortable and even
proud to share it. I’d like to thank especially Professor Harris for picking my essay that
day and for giving me so much encouragement. If it wasn’t for those two things, I
probably would not have decided to continue this piece—and I’m so happy that I did.
And of course I’d like to thank all the authors in my quote book for allowing me to
borrow their words and to write with their pen. And of course I’d like to thank e.e.
cummings. For teaching me so much and providing me “always [with] the beautiful
answer.” 9
8 A friend
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gave me this one and it is apparently from “- said the shotgun to the head”
See the last sentence of the appendix
5
Grace Kohut
*
since feeling is first
*
October 20, 2010
Appendix:
Here is a copy of the essay I spoke about in the beginning of the essay:
The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople-- it's no use trying to pretend that
mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the
squarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings;mostpeople are snobs. Take the matter of being born.
What does being born mean to mostpeople? Catastrophe unmitigated. Socialrevolution. The cultured
aristocrat yanked out of his hyperexclusively ultravoluptuous superpalazzo,and dumped into an incredibly
vulgar detentioncamp swarming with every conceivable species of undesirable organism. Mostpeople
fancy a guaranteed birthproof safetysuit of nondestructible selflessness. If mostpeople were to be born
t wice they'd improbably call it dying-you and I are not snobs. We can never be born enough. We are human beings;for whom birth is a supremely
welcome mystery,the mystery of growing:which happens only and whenever we are faithful to ourselves.
You and I wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it becoming. Life,for eternal us,is now'and now is
much to busy being a little more than everything to seem anything,catastrophic included.
Life,for mostpeople,simply isn't. Take the socalled standardofliving. What do mostpeople mean by "living"?
They don't mean living. They mean the latest and closest plural approximation to singular prenatal
passivity which science,in its finite but unbounded wisdom,has succeeded in selling their wives. If science
could fail,a mountain's a mammal. Mostpeople's wives could spot a genuine delusion of embryonic
omnipotence immediately and will accept no substitutes.
-luckily for us,a mountain is a mammal. The plusorminus movie to end moving,the strictly scientific
parlourgame of real unreality,the tyranny conceived in misconception and dedicated to the proposition
that every man is a woman and any woman is a king,hasn't a wheel to stand on. What their synthetic
not to mention transparent majesty, mrsandmr collective foetus,would improbably call a ghost is
walking. He isn't a undream of anaesthetized impersons, or a cosmic comfortstation,or a transcedentally
sterilized lookiesoundiefeelietastiesmellie. He is a healthily complex,a naturally homogenous,citizen of
immorality. The now of his each pitying free imperfect gesture,his any birth of breathing,insults
perfected inframortally milleniums of slavishness. He is a little more than everything,he is democracy;he
is alive:he is ourselves.
Miracles are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of miracles: they are somebody who can love and
who shall be continually reborn,a human being;somebody who said to those near him,when his fingers
would not hold a brush "tie it to my hand"-nothing proving or sick or partial. Nothing false,nothing difficult or easy or small or colossal. Nothing
ordinary or extraordinary,nothing emptied or filled,real or unreal;nothing feeble and known or clumsy
and guessed. Everywhere tints childrening,innocent spontaneaous,true. Nowhere possibly what flesh and
impossibly such a garden,but actually flowers which breasts are amoung the very mouths of light. Nothing
believed or doubted;brain over heart, surface:nowhere hating or to fear;shadow,mind without soul. Only
how measureless cool flames of making;only each other building always distinct selves of mutual entirely
opening;only alive. Never the murdered finalities of wherewhen and yesno,impotent nongames of
wrongright and right wrong;never to gain or pause,never the soft adventure of undoom,greedy anguishes
and cringing ecstasies of inexistence;never to rest and never to have;only to grow.
Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question
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