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Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Edward
Estlin Cummings attended Harvard (B.A., 1915; M.A., 1916), served as a
volunteer ambulance driver in France during World War I, was imprisoned for
three months in a French detention camp, served in the United States Army
(1918-1919), then studied art and painting in Paris (1920-1924).
His prose narrative The Enormous Room
(1922), a recollection of his imprisonment, brought instant acclaim. Several
volumes of poetry followed. His experiments with punctuation, line division,
and capitalization make his work immediately recognizable. In a letter to
young poets published in a high school newspaper, Cummings said, "[N]othing
is quite so easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly
this nearly all the time, and whenever we do it, we're not poets."
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e.e. cummings
(1894-1962)
V
in spite of everything
which breathes and moves, since Doom
(with white longest hands
neatening each crease)
will smooth entirely our minds
-before leaving my room
i turn,and (stooping
through the morning) kiss
this pillow,dear
where our heads lived and were.
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