“how fortunate are you and i - E. E. Cummings”
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Rev. Bruce Southworth – Senior Minister
The Community Church of New York
Unitarian Universalist
Opening Words
… how fortunate are you and i,whose home
is timelessness: we who have wandered down
from fragment mountains of eternal now
to frolic in such mysteries as birth
and death a day(or maybe even less)
[“stand with your lover”]
Readings
(1) Introduction to E. E. Cummings’ Collected Poems (1938):
“The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople. What
does being born mean to mostpeople? Catastrophe unmitigated… Mostpeople fancy a
guaranteed birthproof safetysuit… We can never be born enough. We are human
beings; for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery, the mystery of
growing:themystery which happens only and whenever we are faithful to ourselves.…
“Miracles are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of miracles: they are by
somebody who can love and who shall be continually reborn.” (in E. E. Cummings, A
Poet’s Life, Catherine Reef, Clarion Press, 2006, 99)
(2) Of this book, Dudley Fitts in the Saturday Review of Literature wrote, “It was
time for this book… With all its failure and beauties, its clashing styles, its
brainsmashing complexities and moving simplicities, this is the poetry of a man of
complete artistic integrity.” (Dreams in the Mirror – A Biography of E. E. Cummings,
Richard S. Kennedy, Liveright, NY, 1980, p. 382)
(3) Next, E. E. Cummings concludes his Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard
University, this way:
“Ecstasy and anguish, being and becoming; the immortality of the creative
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imagination and the indomitability of the human spirit – these are the subjects… (p. 111)
“I am someone who proudly and humbly affirms that love is the mystery-ofmysteries [and each of us is an] eternal complexity…a naturally and miraculously whole
human being – a feelingly illimitable individual; whose only happiness is to
transcend…[oneself], whose every agony is to grow.” (“i - six nonlectures”, Charles Eliot
Norton Lectures 1952-1953, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 9th printing
1977, pages 110-111)
(4) Finally, a poem from E. E. Cummings’ last volume (73 Poems) published in
1963 a year after his death:
one winter afternoon
(at the magical hour
when is becomes if)
a bespangled clown
standing on eighth street
handed me a flower.
nobody,it's safe
to say,observed him but
myself;and why?because
without any doubt he was
whatever(first and last)
mostpeople fear most:
a mystery for which i've
no word except alive
-that is,completely alert
and miraculously whole;
with not merely a mind and a heart
but unquestionably a soulby no means funereally hilarious
(or otherwise democratic)
but essentially poetic
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or ethereally serious:
a fine not a coarse clown
(no mob,but a person)
and while never saying a word
who was anything but dumb;
since the silence of him
self sang like a bird. …
-i thank heaven somebody's crazy
enough to give me a daisy
“how fortunate are you and i - E. E. Cummings”
Rev. Bruce Southworth
In 1956, E. E. Cummings at age 62 was one of this country’s most celebrated
poets, whose creativity in language, image, and construction of his poems had finally
won over the most disparaging critics and certainly the American people. His Collected
Poems had received a special citation in connection with the National Book Awards a
year earlier, and for several years, he had been touring the country in great demand for
his poetry readings, finally achieving a measure of financial security.
In the fall of 1956, he received an invitation to be the Festival Poet for the Boston
Arts Festival to be held in June of the following year. The only condition was to write a
new poem for the occasion on any subject of his choosing and to include it in the poetry
program among the many other events in the arts.
So, what might he write about he wondered. E. E. Cummings was not
particularly interested in the larger political events of the world.
Yet, in the fall of 1956, he followed events in Soviet-controlled Hungary as
students and writers demanded greater freedom. A president, who had been selected
by the Soviet Union, surprisingly and quickly supported the Hungarian people. However
within two weeks Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian revolution.
In this instance, E. E. Cummings was stunned by the lack of intervention by the
United States although it had been promoting the notion of democratic freedom
throughout the eastern block satellite countries as the Cold War unfolded.
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He titled the poem he wrote THANKSGIVING (1956) and sent it to the Festival
officials. It reads in part:
a monstering horror swallows
this unworld …
“be quiet little hungary
and do as you are bid…”
uncle sam shrugs his pretty
… shoulders you know how…
and … “I’m busy right now”
so rah-rah-rah democracy
let’s all be as thankful as hell
and bury the statue of liberty
(because it begins to smell)
The festival officials expressed their concern about such an overtly political
poem. After making his own protests to them, E. E. Cummings on the day of the festival
offered a very different poem with these lines included:
i am a little church (no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april
my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness …
i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature …
At the Boston Festival, 7000 listeners attended his reading at the Public
Gardens, and he did include “Thanksgiving 1956”, which was well received. It became a
part of his usual poetry readings thereafter… almost always applauded as he began it.
By way of introduction to E. E. Cummings, are these two poems – one of prayer
of “seeking and striving” and one of protest.
To these categories, I need to add poems of spring, and this one that follows is
sometimes called the favorite of his readers:
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in Justspring
when the world is mudluscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles
far
and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far
and wee
andbettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan
far
and
wee
whistles
As a great lyric poet of love, Cummings would also offer sensuous lines such as
these:
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing….
Then,
and now you are and I am now and we’re
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a mystery which will never happen again,
a miracle which has never happened before
and shining this our now ….
(“now all the fingers”)
And, “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)”.
This morning I turn to the life, spirit, and writings of Edward Estlin Cummings, as
part of the occasional series on theology and spiritual growth through biography. Like
many, I have long been enchanted by his playful spirit, and who in an American high
school literature class has not understood that there is something quite different in this
poet? We know this initially so often because he’s the guy who more often than not
avoids capital letters and ordinary rules of punctuation, sometimes arranging the words
or syllables of his poems artfully across the page, sometimes nearly impossible to
comprehend.
But there is more to him than his style, and perhaps you encountered his
exclamations that have entered popular culture, for example: “Damn everything but the
circus.” (from Him)
He celebrates the freedom of the human spirit, the challenge of authentic living,
and I from time to time return to his life’s theme, at least one of them: “To be nobody
but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody
else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop
fighting.”
His vision of a “mud-luscious” and “puddle-wonderful” world may be an entrypoint, or those lines from a winter afternoon of one who is grateful for receiving a daisy.
His life and spirit are steeped in and reflect the zest for life of the Unitarian
Transcendentalists and their affirmations of human dignity, worth and at-homeness in
this world, over against the damning Calvinist angry god who deems us depraved and
most likely destined for eternal hell – the Unitarian affirmations of freedom and
individuality, the salvation we find in living deliberately as Thoreau sought for himself –
salvation through character and self-culture, growth, and self-transcendence… doing
our parts to make this world better by the breadth and depth of our loving deeds and
caring hearts.
These spiritual foundations, these theological cornerstones, came naturally out of
his home environment. His mother’s family had been Unitarians for generations, and
his father had left behind the Calvinist theology of his upbringing. Edward Cummings,
perhaps the best educated and trained sociologist in the United States and a Harvard
professor, became a Unitarian minister and served Boston’s South Church (Unitarian).
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[His son Edward Estlin Cummings, whom they called by his middle name, reports
in his Norton lectures at Harvard that his father on a beautiful spring day once wondered
aloud to the congregation why anyone would possible choose to go to church to hear
him on such a glorious day.]
His father was steeped in the social gospel of good works and transformation of
capitalist abuses of society, and he spoke of his faith as a religion of the Star, the star of
Bethlehem being the star of peace and the star of a magnificent creation in which we
live and move and have our being.
His mother Rebecca was poor at domestic chores, but they had servants, and
she was deeply committed to encouraging the intellectual growth of her children. Estlin,
seven years older than his sister, received his mother’s encouragements in writing,
music and drawing. She recorded his first poem at age three:
Oh my little birdie, oh
With his little toe, toe, toe!
An uncle gave him a poetry rhyming manual, and Cummings observed that he
had not chosen to be a writer; he simply had been one all his life.
The balloon man of the poem was a common sight in the neighborhood.
John Keats was a particularly important influence upon him, and he reports how
he sensed his calling upon reading lines from a letter written by Keats: “I am certain of
nothing but the holiness of the Heart’s affections, and the truth of the Imagination.” He
later recalled, “An unknown and unknowable bird began singing” within him. (E. E.
Cummings, A Poet’s Life, Catherine Reef, Clarion Press, 2006, 21)
The muses of the Heart and Imagination sustained him throughout his life.
He was precocious in most subjects except math and entered seventh grade at
age ten. At Harvard College, he earned a degree in “Literature especially in Greek and
English”, magna cum laude, followed by a Master’s degree in English, completing those
studies in 1916.
In addition to going to the symphony, the opera, and ballet, Cummings was part
of a literary crowd, and the Harvard Monthly published many of his poems, plus an
essay about the New Art that he also delivered as one of the Commencement speeches
– a high honor indeed.
E. E. Cummings’ relationship with his father was often strained in his adult years,
for his father offered both support and considerable criticism. Before his father died in a
tragic car and train accident in 1926, they had reconciled, and Cummings’ poem about
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his father is one I find haunting and powerful, as have others for it is among his honored
poems. It includes these lines:
my father moved through the dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height…
joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
because my father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all
Cummings understood his was a very privileged upbringing, and when drafted
into the army during World War I, he refused the option of officer’s training that came
when he had been evaluated for his intellect and aptitude upon entering the army. He
much preferred the egalitarian role as a regular soldier, as much as he hated the
regimen and lack of freedom. He was proud he was discharged at the end of the war at
the same rank he entered, as private, not even having attained the rank of private first
class.
His individualism and anti-authoritarianism ran deep indeed.
His pursued his goal of going to New York, to Greenwich Village to paint and to
write, and shared a fourth floor walk-up with a friend. Partying and drinking were
serious endeavors, along with the poetry and painting.
He held a job with Collier’s Weekly packing shipments of books for a few months,
before quitting because of the tedium. He lived on small fees for poems to periodicals,
often run by college friends, and patronage of these and other friends who bought his
paintings or drawings. And funds from his parents sustained him more often than not for
the next twenty years to help ends meet.
During the 1920s, there were also trifles, short pieces, for Vanity Fair, and his
reputation as an abstract American cubist painter began to grow as did interest in some
of his poetry. Yet neither generated much income.
Elaine Thayer was married to one of his best friends, who soon grew estranged
from her, yet this friend encouraged the mutual interest between his wife and
Cummings. Elaine became pregnant in 1919, clearly from Estlin Cummings, for her
husband was most often working in Chicago. However, for reasons of reputation and
the Thayer’s social status, an immediate divorce and acknowledgment of Cummings’
role as the father was out of the question.
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[Cummings seems to have little initial instinct for fathering or desire to have a
family at this time, and for the most part simply identified the child as Elaine’s daughter.
For most of 1921 through 1923, Cummings lived in Paris, and because of Elaine’s
summer trips to Europe, he would often see his daughter. He came to love their times
of playing together.]
Elaine did divorce her husband in 1921, and then in early 1924, Elaine suggested
that Cummings and she marry. E. E. Cummings and she were wed by his father that
spring in Cambridge. Cummings continued his habits of sleeping till noon, and partying
late, but also disdained Elaine’s socialite friends. She complained about his childish
ways, and despite his love for her, he had to accept her demands for a divorce after she
fell in love with an Irish business executive and politician.
After another failed marriage because of his second wife’s alcoholism and affairs,
E. E. Cummings at age 37 met the woman who would be the lasting love of his life –
Marion Morehouse. She was twelve years younger and, at nearly 6 feet in height, was
three inches taller than the five-eight Cummings. She was acclaimed as one of the
great beauties in New York, a model for the famous photographer Edward Steichen and
a fashion model. When she and Cummings lived in Paris for a while, she was
immediately a model for Paris’ Vogue magazine.
Throughout these years of ups and downs in his personal life, his reputation as a
writer kept growing, with appreciation for his creativity in both poetry and a novel. He
began to receive various awards, including the Norton lectures at Harvard, the National
Book Award citation, and the Bollingen Poetry Prize from Yale.
Both he and Marion lived with arthritis in varying degrees in their later years in
Greenwich Village, yet still occasionally traveled to Europe, and they continued to spend
summers at their New Hampshire farm. It was there on September 2, 1962 that E. E.
Cummings was chopping wood one morning. When done, he resharpened the axe as
he had long ago been taught by his father. He went upstairs in the main house where
he suffered a massive stroke. He died the next day at the local hospital at age sixtyseven. His last volume of poetry – for he had been actively writing to the end – was
published in 1963.
A few sparkling lines about some of his themes:
there are possibly 2 ½ or impossibly 3
individuals every several fat
thousand years...
From an anti-war poem:
… no
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kidding
this was my particular
pal funny ain’t
it we was
buddies
I used to
know
him lift this side up handle
with care
fragile
and send him home
to his old mother in
a new nice pine box
(collect
[“look at this”]
And,
“the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds…”
From nonlecture number 4, “If God means nothing to you (or less than nothing)
I’ll cheerfully substitute one of your own favorite words, “freedom”. (69)
“you shall above all things be glad…
… if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become…”
True to himself, to his art (and his poems went through 20 or more drafts at least
with profound craftsmanship), he celebrated the human spirit, our creativity, your
creativity. He sought to puncture conformity and smugness. He again and again
demanded freedom for himself and others. He is a wild and wise companion as we too
seek to love and continually be reborn.
He portrayed the grace of love, the god of Nature, the gladness of being alive
that is next to godliness….
-alive; we’re alive, dear; it’s (kiss me now) spring!
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… (all the mountains are dancing, are dancing)
[“when faces called flowers”]
In addition to poetry, there were occasional other offerings, for example,
children’s stories:
[E. E. Cummings tells of] a faerie [who] lived on the farthest star, and
the people of the stars and air brought their troubles to him. One morning,
millions of angry people came to complain about an old man on the moon
who kept saying "why." "The millions of troubled angry people cried out
together in a chorus, 'We want you to help us all quickly and if you don't
we'll all go mad!'"
The faerie flew to the moon, where he found a "little very very very very
very very very old man" sitting on a church steeple. He said to the man,
"Listen to me:if you say why again,you'll fall from the moon all the way to
the earth."
And the little very old man smiled;and looking at the faerie,he said
"why?" and he fell millions and millions and millions of deep cool new
beautiful miles(and with every part of a mile he became a little
younger;first he became a not very old man and next a middle-aged man
and then a young man and a boy and finally a child)until,just as he gently
touched the earth,he was about to be born. (E. E. Cummings: A Poet’s
Life, Catherine Reef, pp. 125-6)
Cummings… fully human and fully alive… Why was he so incessantly curious?
Why aren’t we?
A gladness of being alive that is next to godliness….
I close with those opening words, which are in his poem “stand with your lover”
… how fortunate are you and i,whose home
is timelessness: we who have wandered down
from fragment mountains of eternal now
to frolic in such mysteries as birth
and death a day(or maybe even less)
[“stand with your lover”]
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