Editing E. E. Cummings

{{Short description|American author (1894–1962)}}
{{For|the politician and civil rights advocate|Elijah E. Cummings}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2018}}

{{Use American English|date=June 2024}}

{{Infobox author
 |image       =E. E. Cummings NYWTS.jpg
 |alt         =A black-and-white photo of Cummings standing in profile
 |caption     =Cummings in 1953
 |birth_name  =Edward Estlin Cummings
 |birth_date  ={{Birth date|mf=yes|1894|10|14}}
 |birth_place =[[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], U.S.
 |death_date  ={{Death date and age|mf=yes|1962|9|3|1894|10|14}}
 |death_place =[[Madison, New Hampshire]], U.S.
 |alma_mater  =[[Harvard University]]
 |occupation  =Author
 |signature   =EE Cummings signature.svg
}}

'''Edward Estlin Cummings''' (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), commonly known as '''e e cummings''' or '''E. E. Cummings''', was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. During [[World War I]], he worked as an ambulance driver and was imprisoned in an internment camp, which provided the basis for his novel ''[[The Enormous Room]]'' in 1922. The following year he published his first collection of poetry, ''[[Tulips and Chimneys]]'', which showed his early experiments with grammar and typography. He wrote four plays; ''[[Him (Cummings play)|HIM]]'' (1927) and ''[[Santa Claus: A Morality]]'' (1946) were the most successful ones. He wrote ''[[Eimi (book)|EIMI]]'' (1933), a travelog of the Soviet Union, and delivered the [[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures]] in poetry, published as ''i—six nonlectures'' (1953). ''[[Fairy Tales (Cummings)|Fairy Tales]]'' (1965), a collection of short stories, was published posthumously. 

Cummings wrote approximately 2,900 poems. He is often regarded as one of the most important American poets of the 20th century. He is associated with [[Modernist literature|modernist]] [[Free verse|free-form poetry]], and much of his work uses idiosyncratic syntax and lower-case spellings for poetic expression. [[Macha Rosenthal|M. L. Rosenthal]] wrote:

{{blockquote|1=The chief effect of Cummings' jugglery with syntax, grammar, and diction was to blow open otherwise trite and bathetic motifs through a dynamic rediscovery of the energies sealed up in conventional usage{{nbsp}}... He succeeded masterfully in splitting the atom of the cute commonplace.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rosenthal |first=M. L. |title=The Modern Poets: A Critical Introduction.}}</ref>}}
For Norman Friedman, Cummings's inventions "are best understood as various ways of stripping the film of familiarity from language 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."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Friedman |first=Norman |title=E. E. Cummings: The Growth of a Writer}}</ref>

The poet [[Randall Jarrell]] said of Cummings, "No one else has ever made avant-garde, experimental poems so attractive to the general and the special reader." [[James Dickey]] wrote, "I think that Cummings is a daringly original poet, with more vitality and more sheer, uncompromising talent than any other living American writer." Dickey described himself as "ashamed and even a little guilty in picking out flaws" in Cummings's poetry, which he compared to noting "the aesthetic defects in a rose. It is better to say what must finally be said about Cummings: that he has helped to give life to the language."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dickey |first=James |title=Babel to Byzantium}}</ref>

==Life==

===Early years===
Edward Estlin Cummings was born on October 14, 1894, in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], to  Edward Cummings and Rebecca Haswell ({{nee|Clarke}}), a well-known [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] upper-class couple in the city. His father was a professor at [[Harvard University]] who later became nationally known as the minister of South Congregational Church (Unitarian) in [[Boston|Boston, Massachusetts]].<ref>Collins, Leo W. ''This is Our Church''. Boston, Massachusetts: Society of the First Church in Boston, 2005: 104.</ref> His mother, who loved to spend time with her children, played games with Edward and his sister, Elizabeth. From an early age, Cummings's parents supported his creative gifts.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/cummings/cummings_life.htm|title=E. E. Cummings' Life|work=english.illinois.edu|access-date=27 April 2016|archive-date=March 25, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190325224309/http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/cummings/cummings_life.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> Cummings wrote poems and drew as a child, and he often played outdoors with the other children who lived in his neighborhood. He grew up in the company of family friends such as the philosophers [[William James]] and [[Josiah Royce]]. Many of Cummings's summers were spent on [[Silver Lake (Madison, New Hampshire)|Silver Lake]] in [[Madison, New Hampshire]], where his father had built two houses along the eastern shore. The family ultimately purchased the nearby [[Joy Farm]] where Cummings had his primary summer residence.{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|p=10}}<ref>{{citation |date=n.d. |title=e. e. cummings (1894-1962) |url=https://www.nh.gov/nhsl/bookcenter/programs/spotlights/eecummings.html |work=The Center for the Book at New Hampshire State Library |series=Spotlight on New Hampshire Authors |access-date=August 10, 2023 |archive-date=June 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230616181526/https://www.nh.gov/nhsl/bookcenter/programs/spotlights/eecummings.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

He expressed [[transcendentalism|transcendental]] leanings his entire life. As he matured, Cummings moved to an [[I and Thou|"I, Thou"]] relationship with God. His journals are replete with references to ''"le bon Dieu,"'' as well as prayers for inspiration in his poetry and artwork (such as "Bon Dieu! may i some day do something truly great. amen."). Cummings "also prayed for strength to be his essential self ('may I be I is the only prayer—not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong'), and for relief of spirit in times of depression ('almighty God! I thank thee for my soul; & may I never die spiritually into a mere mind through disease of loneliness')".<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/cummings.html |title=E. E. Cummings: Poet And Painter |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060902151619/http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/cummings.html |archive-date=September 2, 2006 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Cummings wanted to be a poet from childhood and wrote poetry daily from age 8 to 22, exploring assorted forms. He studied [[Latin]] and [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] at [[Cambridge Latin High School]]. He attended [[Harvard University]], graduating with a [[Bachelor of Arts]] degree [[magna cum laude]] and was elected to the [[Phi Beta Kappa]] society in 1915. The following year, he received a [[Master of Arts]] degree from the university. During his studies at Harvard, he developed an interest in modern poetry, which ignored conventional grammar and syntax and aimed for a dynamic use of language. His first published poems appeared in ''Eight Harvard Poets'' (1917). Upon graduating, he worked for a book dealer.<ref name="fountn bio"/>
[[File:Harvard Monthly vol 56.jpg|thumb|right|Masthead from volume 56 of ''[[The Harvard Monthly]]''; Cummings was an editor and contributor to this literary journal while at Harvard]]

===War years===
In 1917, with the First World War going on in Europe, Cummings enlisted in the [[American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps|Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps]]. On the boat to France, he met [[William Slater Brown]] and they quickly became friends.<ref name="fountn bio"/> Due to an administrative error, Cummings and Brown did not receive an assignment for five weeks, a period they spent exploring [[Paris]]. Cummings fell in love with the city, to which he would return throughout his life.<ref name="utexas">{{citation |url= http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00030.xml|title=E. E. Cummings: An Inventory of His Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center|work=Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center|publisher=University of Texas |access-date=May 9, 2010}}</ref>

During their service in the ambulance corps, the two young writers sent letters home that drew the attention of the military censors. They were known to prefer the company of French soldiers over fellow ambulance drivers. The two openly expressed anti-war views, Cummings spoke of his lack of hatred for the Germans.<ref>Friedman, Norman "Cummings, E[dward] E[stlin]". In Steven Serafin, ''The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature'', 2003, Continuum, p. 244.</ref> On September 21, 1917, five months after starting his belated assignment, Cummings and William Slater Brown were arrested by the French military on suspicion of espionage and undesirable activities, they were held for three and a half months in a military detention camp at the {{lang|fr|Dépôt de Triage}}, in [[La Ferté-Macé]], Orne, Normandy.<ref name="utexas" />

They were imprisoned with other detainees in a large room. Cummings's father made strenuous efforts to obtain his son's release through diplomatic channels; although advised his son's release was approved, there were lengthy delays, with little explanation. In frustration, Cummings's father wrote a letter to President [[Woodrow Wilson]] in December 1917. Cummings was released on December 19, 1917, returning to his family in the U.S. by New Year's Day, 1918. Cummings, his father, and Brown's family continued to agitate for Brown's release. By mid-February, he, too, was America-bound. Cummings used his prison experience as the basis for his novel, ''[[The Enormous Room]]'' (1922), about which [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]] said, "Of all the work by young men who have sprung up since 1920 one book survives—''The Enormous Room'' by E. E. Cummings&nbsp;... Those few who cause books to live have not been able to endure the thought of its mortality."{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|pp=120, 127, 133–134}}{{sfnp|Bloom|1985|p=1814}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fitzgerald |first1=F. Scott |title=Afternoon of an Author |date=1958 |publisher=The Bodley Head |location=London |pages=150–155 |orig-date=Essay first published 1926 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/afternoonofautho0000fsco_g9d6/page/152/ |chapter=How to Waste Material: A Note on My Generation}}</ref> Later in 1918 he was drafted into the army. He served a training deployment<ref name="fountn bio"/> in the [[12th Division (United States)|12th Division]] at [[Camp Devens|Camp Devens, Massachusetts]], until November 1918.{{sfnp|Kennedy|1994|p=186}}<ref>{{cite web |url= http://freepages.military.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~worldwarone/WWI/divisions.html#Twelfth|title=Data on U.S. Army Divisions during World War I, WWI, The Great War}}</ref>

{{Quote box
| width = 300px
| align = right|
| salign = right
| quote = <poem>
Buffalo Bill's
defunct
        who used to
        ride a watersmooth-silver
                                  stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                                  Jesus

he was a handsome man
                      and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death
</poem>
| source = "[[Buffalo Bill's (poem)|Buffalo Bill's]]" (1920){{efn|[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47244/buffalo-bill-s "Buffalo Bill's" available at the Poetry Foundation]}}
}}

===Post-war years===
Cummings returned to Paris in 1921, and lived there for two years before returning to New York. His collection ''[[Tulips and Chimneys]],'' was published in 1923, and his inventive use of grammar and syntax is evident. The book was heavily cut by his editor. ''XLI Poems'' was published in 1925. With these collections, Cummings made his reputation as an [[avant-garde]] poet.<ref name="fountn bio"/>

During the rest of the 1920s and 1930s, Cummings returned to Paris a number of times, and traveled throughout Europe. In 1931 Cummings traveled to the [[Soviet Union]], recounting his experiences in ''[[Eimi (book)|Eimi]]'', published two years later. During these years Cummings also traveled to Northern Africa and [[Mexico]], and he worked as an essayist and portrait artist for ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' magazine (1924–1927).{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|pp=256–275}}{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|loc=Chapters 11 and 12: "Abroad"; "An American In Paris"}}{{sfnp|Friedman|1964|loc=Chapter 7: "''Eimi'' (1933)". pp. 109–124|ref=FriedmanBook}}

In 1926, Cummings's parents were in a car crash; only his mother survived, although she was severely injured. Cummings later described the crash in the following passage from his ''i: six nonlectures'' series given at Harvard (as part of the [[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures]]) in 1952 and 1953:{{sfnp|Friedman|1964|pp=153–154, 305|ref=FriedmanBook}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cummings |first1=E. E. |title=i: Six Nonlectures |date=1954 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA, U.S. |pages=2–20 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/sixnonlectures0000eecu_d1u1/page/2/mode/ |chapter-url-access=registration |language=English |chapter=i & my parents: Nonlecture one |series=[The Charles Elliot Norton Lectures 1952–1953]}}</ref>
{{blockquote|1=A locomotive cut the car in half, killing my father instantly. When two brakemen jumped from the halted train, they saw a woman standing – dazed but erect – beside a mangled machine; with blood spouting (as the older said to me) out of her head. One of her hands (the younger added) kept feeling her dress, as if trying to discover why it was wet. These men took my sixty-six-year old mother by the arms and tried to lead her toward a nearby farmhouse; but she threw them off, strode straight to my father's body, and directed a group of scared spectators to cover him. When this had been done (and only then) she let them lead her away.|2=E. E. Cummings (1952). "i & my parents: Nonlecture one", p. 12}}

His father's death had a profound effect on Cummings, who entered a new period in his artistic life. He began to focus on more important aspects of life in his poetry. He started this new period by paying homage to his father in the poem "my father moved through dooms of love".{{efn|"my father moved through dooms of love", [https://web.archive.org/web/20050315070117/http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem114.html via —Berkeley]<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem114.html |title=My father moved through dooms of love |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20050315070117/http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem114.html |archive-date=March 15, 2005 |df=mdy-all|website=Poetry: Berkeley}}</ref>}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Gary |last=Lane |date=1976 |title=I Am: A Study of E. E. Cummings' Poems |url= https://archive.org/details/iamstudyofeecumm0000lane |url-access=registration |location=[[Lawrence, Kansas]] |publisher=University Press of Kansas |isbn=0-7006-0144-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/iamstudyofeecumm0000lane/page/41 41–43]}}</ref>

In the 1930s, Samuel Aiwaz Jacobs was Cummings's publisher; he had started the Golden Eagle Press after working as a typographer and publisher.{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|pp=241, 366}}

===Final years===
[[File:EECummingsGrave.jpg|thumb|right|Grave of E. E. Cummings]]

In 1952, his alma mater, [[Harvard University]], awarded Cummings an honorary seat as a guest professor. The [[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures]] he gave in 1952 and 1955 were later collected as ''i: six nonlectures''.<ref name=preface>{{cite book |first1=Norman |last1=Friedman |last2=Moore |first2=Harry T. |title=E. E. Cummings: The growth of a writer |date=1964a |publisher=Carbondale |location=Southern Illinois University Press |pages=v–viii |author1-mask=In Friedman, Norman (volume author) |url=https://archive.org/details/eecummingsgrowth0000frie/page/n11/ |chapter=Preface}}</ref>
{{Quote box
| width = 300px
| align = left|{{poem quote|1=
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
|2=From "i thank You God for most this amazing" (1950){{efn|See: ''Selected works'' (1994)<ref name="Kennedy"/>{{rp|167}}}}}}
}}

Cummings spent the last decade of his life traveling, fulfilling speaking engagements, and spending time at his summer home, [[Joy Farm]], in [[Silver Lake, New Hampshire]]. He died of a stroke on September 3, 1962, at the age of 67 at Memorial Hospital in [[North Conway, New Hampshire]].<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1962/09/04/archives/ee-cummings-dies-of-stroke-poet-stood-for-stylistic-liberty-unusual.html|url-access=subscription|title=E.&nbsp;E. Cummings Dies of Stroke. Poet Stood for Stylistic Liberty|date=September 4, 1962|work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> Cummings was buried at [[Forest Hills Cemetery]] in Boston, Massachusetts. At the time of his death, Cummings was recognized as the "second most widely read poet in the United States, after [[Robert Frost]]".<ref name="aap"/>

Cummings's papers are held at the [[Houghton Library]] at [[Harvard University]] and the [[Harry Ransom Center]] at the [[University of Texas at Austin]].<ref name="utexas" />

==Personal life==

===Marriages===
[[File:EECummings pd4.jpg|thumb|upright|Sketched self-portrait circa 1920]]
Cummings was married twice: first to Elaine Orr Thayer in 1924, then to Anne Minnerly Barton in 1929. His longest relationship, with Marion Morehouse, began in 1934, and lasted more than three decades.{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|loc=Chapter 14: "Marriage and UnMarriage". pp. 237–254}}

In 1917, before his first marriage, Cummings shared several passionate love letters with a Parisian prostitute, Marie Louise Lallemand.<ref name="guard Alberge">{{Cite news|first= Dalya |last=Alberge |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/19/revealed-how-a-parisian-sex-worker-stole-the-heart-of-poet-ee-cummings |title=Revealed: How a Parisian sex worker stole the heart of poet EE Cummings |newspaper=The Guardian |date=July 19, 2020}}</ref> Despite Cummings's efforts, he was unable to find Lallemand upon his return to Paris after serving at the front.<ref name="guard Alberge" />

Cummings's relationship with Elaine Orr began as a love affair in 1918, while she was still married to [[Scofield Thayer]], one of Cummings' friends from Harvard. During this time, he wrote a large portion of his erotic poetry.<ref name="Kennedy">{{cite book |last1=Cummings |first1=E. E. |editor=Richard S. Kennedy |title=Selected poems |date=1994 |publisher=Liveright |location=New York |isbn=978-0-87140-153-3 |page=72 |url=https://archive.org/details/selectedpoems0000cumm/page/72/|others=With introduction and commentary by Richard S. Kennedy}}</ref>{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|pp=145–146}} The couple had a daughter while Orr was still married to Thayer. After Orr divorced Thayer, Cummings and Orr married on March 19, 1924. Thayer had been registered on the child's birth certificate as the father, but Cummings legally adopted her after his marriage to Orr. Although his relationship with Orr stretched back several years, the marriage was brief. On a trip to Paris, Orr met and fell in love with the Irish nobleman, future politician, author, journalist, and former banker [[Frank MacDermot]]. The couple separated after two months of marriage and divorced less than nine months later.<ref name="fountn bio"/>{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|loc=Chapter 14: "Marriage and UnMarriage". pp. 237–254}}{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|p=161}} 

Cummings married his second wife, Anne Minnerly Barton, on May 1, 1929. They separated three years later in 1932. That same year, Minnerly obtained a [[Mexican divorce]]; it was not officially recognized in the United States until August 1934. Anne died in 1970 aged 72.{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|loc=Chapter 14: "Marriage and UnMarriage". pp. 237–254}}

<!--NOTE: The 2 "fact-July 2023" tags interposed in this par, like most of the other 38 such "cite needed" tags defacing the article and placed by A. Prof, an IP, were wholly unjustified, as the 2 cites present cover all the material herein. NOTE ENDS-->In 1934, Cummings met Marion Morehouse, a fashion model and photographer. It is not clear whether the two were ever formally married. Morehouse lived with Cummings until his death in 1962. She died on May 18, 1969,<ref>{{cite news |title=Marion Morehouse Cummings, Poet's Widow, Top Model, Dies |via=NYT Archives|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/05/19/archives/marion-morehouse-cummings-poets-widow-top-model-dies.html |work=The New York Times |date= May 19, 1969|page=47 |language=en|url-access=subscription}}</ref><!--NOTE: Similarly the "full" tag was mistaken, cite WAS complete, to extent required by WP policy; expanded anyway, (took 2 mins to find a link using already present info). Aug 2023.--NOTE ENDS--> while living at 4 [[Patchin Place]], [[Greenwich Village]], New York City, where Cummings had resided since September 1924.{{sfnp|Sawyer-Lauçanno|2004|pp=255, 363, 378–380}}

===Political views===
According to his testimony in ''[[Eimi (book)|EIMI]]'', Cummings had little interest in politics until his trip to the Soviet Union in 1931.<ref>Carla Blumenkranz, [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/180437 "The Enormous Poem: When E.E. Cummings Repunctuated Stalinism"]. [[Poetry Foundation]].</ref> He subsequently shifted rightward on many political and social issues.<ref>{{cite book|url= http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/modern/cummings_ee.html|title=Heath Anthology of American Literature |chapter=E. E. Cummings – Author Page}}</ref> Despite his radical and [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] public image, he was a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] and later an ardent supporter of [[Joseph McCarthy]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Wetzsteon |first=Ross |date=2002 |title=Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910–1960|page=449|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o2DB77ccf9sC&pg=PA449|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=9780684869964 | via=Google Books}}</ref>

== Literary overview ==
{{Multiple issues|section=yes|collapsed=yes|{{original research|section|date=July 2023}}
{{tone|section|date=August 2023|reason=The literary review-style analysis would be better attributed in-text; as it stands, it appears most are in Wikipedia's voice.}}}}

=== Poetry ===
As well as being influenced by notable [[Modernism|modernists]], including [[Gertrude Stein]] and [[Ezra Pound]], Cummings was particularly drawn to early [[Imagism|imagist]] experiments; later, his visits to Paris exposed him to [[Dada]] and [[Surrealism]], which was reflected in his writing style.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Norman |first=Charles |title=E. E. Cummings, a biography |publisher=E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc |year=1967 |location=U.S.A. |pages=38}}</ref> Cummings critic and biographer Norman Friedman remarks that in Cummings's later work the "shift from simile to symbol" created poetry that is "frequently more lucid, more moving, and more profound than his earlier".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Friedman |first=Norman Friedman |title=E. E. Cummings: The Art of His Poetry |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |year=2019 |isbn=9780801802072}}</ref>

Despite Cummings's familiarity with avant-garde styles (likely affected by the [[calligram]]s of French poet [[Apollinaire]], according to a contemporary observation<ref>Taupin, Rene (1985). ''The Influence of French Symbolism on Modern American Poetry 1927''. (Translated by William Pratt). AMS Inc: New York {{ISBN|0404615791}}</ref>), much of his work  draws inspiration from traditional forms. For example, many of his poems are [[sonnet]]s, albeit described by Richard D. Cureton as "revisionary{{nbsp}}... with scrambled rhymes and rearranged, disproportioned structures; awkwardly unpredictable metrical variation; clashing, mawkish diction; complex, wandering syntax; etc."<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Cureton |first=Richard D. |date=2020 |title=Pararhyme in E. E. Cummings' "Sonnets—Realities" |url=https://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cummings/issue3/Turco3.html |journal=University of Michigan}}</ref> He occasionally drew from the [[blues]] form and used [[acrostic]]s. Many of Cummings's poems are satirical and address social issues{{efn|For example, "why must itself up every of a park"}} but have an equal or even stronger bias toward [[Romanticism]]: time and again his poems celebrate love, sex, and the season of rebirth.{{sfnp|Friedman|1964|pp=3–22, 47|ref=FriedmanBook}}{{efn|For example, "[anyone lived in a pretty how town]"}}

While his poetic forms and themes share an affinity with the Romantic tradition, critic Emily Essert asserts that Cummings's work is particularly modernist and frequently employs what linguist Irene Fairley calls "[[Syntax|syntactic]] deviance".<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Fairley |first=Irene |title=E. E. Cummings and ungrammar : a study of syntactic deviance in his poems |publisher=Watermill Publisher |year=1975 |location=Searington, N.Y.}}</ref> Some poems do not involve any typographical or punctuation innovations at all, but purely syntactic ones; many of the poems he is best known for, however, do possess a stylistic typography he made his own, particularly in his insistent use of the lower case 'i'.

<!---NB **The typography is Cummings's original setting**--->
{{Quote box |width=350px |align=right ||salign=right
 |quote  =<poem>
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                            i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
</poem>
 |source =From "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in" (1952){{efn|[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179622 "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in"] at the [[Poetry Foundation]].}} }}

While some of his poetry is [[free verse]] (and not beheld to [[rhyme]] or [[meter (poetry)|meter]]), Cureton has remarked that many of his sonnets follow an intricate rhyme scheme, and often employ [[pararhyme]].<ref name=":1" /> A number of Cummings's poems feature his typographically exuberant style, with words, parts of words, or punctuation symbols scattered across the page, wherein Essert asserts "feeling is first" and the work begs to "be re-read in order to be understood";<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Essert |first=Emily |date=Fall 2006 |title="Since Feeling Is First": E. E. Cummings and Modernist Poetic Difficulty |journal=Spring |issue=14–15 |pages=199 |jstor=43915269 }}</ref> Cummings, also a painter, created his texts not just as literature, but as "visual objects" on the page, and used typography to "paint a picture".<ref name="fountn bio"/><ref>{{cite journal |last=Landles |first=Iain|author-link=Iain Landles |title=An Analysis of Two Poems by E. E. Cummings |journal=Spring: Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society |date=2001 |issue=10 |pages=31–43 |jstor=43898141  |issn=0735-6889}}</ref>

The seeds of Cummings's unconventional style appear well established even in his earliest work. At age six, he wrote to his father:<ref>''Selected letters of E. E. Cummings'' (1972). Edward Estlin Cummings, Frederick Wilcox Dupee, George Stade. University of Michigan p. 3 {{ISBN|978-0-233-95637-4}}</ref>

{{poemquote|1=FATHER DEAR. BE, YOUR FATHER-GOOD AND GOOD,
HE IS GOOD NOW, IT IS NOT GOOD TO SEE IT RAIN,
FATHER DEAR IS, IT, DEAR, NO FATHER DEAR,
LOVE, YOU DEAR,
ESTLIN.}}

Following his autobiographical novel, ''[[The Enormous Room]]'', Cummings's first published work was a collection of poems titled ''[[Tulips and Chimneys]]'' (1923). This early work already displayed Cummings's characteristically eccentric use of grammar and punctuation, although a fair amount of the poems are written in conventional language.<ref name="fountn bio" />

{{Quote box |width=300px |align=right ||salign=right
 |quote  =<poem>
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
</poem>
 |source =From "[[anyone lived in a pretty how town]]" (1940){{efn|[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/22653/anyone-lived-in-a-pretty-how-town Text from the Poetry Foundation]: [anyone lived in a pretty how town]<ref>{{cite book|date=1991 |last1=Cummings |first1=E. E. |title=Complete Poems 1904-1962 |editor=George J. Firmage |chapter=[anyone lived in a pretty how town] |publisher=Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/22653/anyone-lived-in-a-pretty-how-town |access-date=10 August 2023 |via=Poetry Foundation|orig-date=Poem first published 1940, ''Poetry Foundation Magazine'', '''LVI''' (V)}}</ref>}} }}

Cummings's works often do not follow the conventional rules that generate typical English sentences, or what Fairley identifies as "ungrammar".<ref name=":4" /> In addition, a number of Cummings's poems feature, in part or in whole, intentional misspellings, and several incorporate phonetic spellings intended to represent particular dialects.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Friedman |first=Norman |date=Dec 1957 |title=Diction, Voice, and Tone: The Poetic Language of E. E. Cummings  |journal=PMLA |volume=72 |issue=5 |pages=1036–1039  |doi=10.2307/460378 |jstor=460378 |s2cid=163935794 }}</ref> Cummings also employs what Fairley describes as "[[Morphological derivation|morphological]] innovation", wherein he frequently creates what critic Ian Landles calls: "unusual [[Compound (linguistics)|compounds]] suggestive of 'a child's language'" like "'mud-luscious' and 'puddle-wonderful'".<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Landles |first=Ian |date=October 2001 |title=An Analysis of Two Poems by E.E. Cummings  |journal=Spring |issue=10 |pages=31–43 |jstor=43898141 }}</ref> Literary critic [[R. P. Blackmur]] has commented that this use of language is "frequently unintelligible because [Cummings] disregards the historical accumulation of meaning in words in favor of merely private and personal associations".{{sfnp|Friedman|1967|pp=61–62}}

Fellow poet [[Edna St. Vincent Millay]], in her equivocal letter recommending Cummings for the [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] he was awarded in 1934, expressed her frustration at his opaque symbolism. "[I]f he prints and offers for sale poetry which he is quite content should be, after hours of sweating concentration, inexplicable from any point of view to a person as intelligent as myself, then he does so with a motive which is frivolous from the point of view of art, and should not be helped or encouraged by any serious person or group of persons{{nbsp}}... there is fine writing and powerful writing (as well as some of the most pompous nonsense I ever let slip to the floor with a wide yawn){{nbsp}}... What I propose, then, is this: that you give Mr. Cummings enough rope. He may hang himself; or he may lasso a unicorn."<ref>Millay to Mr. Moe of the Guggenheim Foundation, March 1934. Quoted in Milford, Nancy (2001) ''Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay'', Doubleday: New York, NY. p370.</ref>

Cummings also wrote children's books and novels. A notable example of his versatility is an introduction he wrote for a collection of the comic strip ''[[Krazy Kat]]''.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Olsen|first=Taimi|title=Krazies...of indescribable beauty: George Herriman's ''Krazy Kat'' and E. E. Cummings|journal=Spring|number=14/15|date=October 2005|publisher=E. E. Cummings Society|pages=220–221|jstor=43915279}}</ref>

Cummings included ethnic slurs in his writing, which proved controversial. In his 1950 collection ''Xaipe: Seventy-One Poems'', Cummings published two poems containing words that caused outrage in some quarters. Friedman considered these two poems to be "condensed" and "cryptic" parables, "sparsely told", in which setting the use of such "inflammatory material" was likely to meet with reader misapprehension. Poet [[William Carlos Williams]] spoke out in his defense.<ref Name="Reef">''E. E. Cummings'' (2006) by Catherine Reef, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p. 115 {{ISBN|978-0-618-56849-9}}</ref>{{sfnp|Friedman|1964|loc=pp. [https://archive.org/details/eecummingsgrowth0000frie/page/152/mode/2up 153–154]: "This is a condensed and cryptic tale, and it is likely that Cummings counted too heavily on the reader's ability (1) to think clearly about racial issues and their accompanying languages, and (2) to make inferences about what the poem says on the basis of a sparsely told parable{{nbsp}}... I think the trouble is the same here, that the poem uses inflammatory material in too condensed and cryptic a fashion."|ref=FriedmanBook}}<ref name="Cummings, 1950">Cummings (1950). ''Xaipe: Seventy-one Poems''. New York: Oxford University Press.</ref>
{{Verse translation|lang=en|italicsoff=y
|one day a nigger
caught in his hand
a little star no bigger
than not to understand

"i'll never let you go
until you've made me white"
so she did and now
stars shine at night.
|
a kike is the most dangerous
machine as yet invented
by even yankee ingenu
ity(out of a jew a few
dead dollars and some twisted laws)
it comes both prigged and canted|attr1=no. 24, from ''Xaipe'' (1950)|attr2=no. 46, from ''Xaipe'' (1950)}}

Cummings biographer Catherine Reef notes of the controversy:<ref Name="Reef" />
{{blockquote|1=Friends begged Cummings to reconsider publishing these poems, and the book's editor pleaded with him to withdraw them, but he insisted that they stay. All the fuss perplexed him. The poems were commenting on prejudice, he pointed out, and not condoning it. He intended to show how derogatory words cause people to see others in terms of stereotypes rather than as individuals. "America (which turns Hungarian into 'hunky' & Irishman into 'mick' and Norwegian into 'square-head') is to blame for 'kike,'" he said.}}

===Plays===
During his lifetime, Cummings published four plays. ''[[Him (Cummings play)|HIM]]'', a three-act play, was first produced in 1928 by the [[Provincetown Players]] in New York City. The production was directed by James Light. The play's main characters are "Him", a playwright, portrayed by [[William Johnstone (actor)|William Johnstone]], and "Me", his girlfriend, portrayed by [[Erin O'Brien-Moore]].

Cummings said of the unorthodox play:{{sfnp|Kennedy|1994|p=295}}
{{blockquote|1=Relax and give the play a chance to strut its stuff—relax, stop wondering what it is all 'about'—like many strange and familiar things, Life included, this play isn't 'about,' it simply is. ... Don't try to enjoy it, let it try to enjoy you. <small>DON'T TRY TO UNDERSTAND IT, LET IT TRY TO UNDERSTAND YOU.</small>"}}

''Anthropos, or the Future of Art'' is a short, one-act play that Cummings contributed to the anthology ''Whither, Whither or After Sex, What? A Symposium to End Symposium''. The play consists of dialogue between Man, the main character, and three "infrahumans", or inferior beings. The word ''[[Greek language|anthropos]]'' is the [[Greek language|Greek]] word for "man", in the sense of "mankind".

''Tom, A Ballet'' is a ballet based on ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]''. The ballet is detailed in a "synopsis" as well as descriptions of four "episodes", which were published by Cummings in 1935. It remained unperformed until 2015.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cummings/Tom.html |title=''Tom: A Ballet'' (1935) |last=Webster |first=Michael |website=Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society |access-date=December 14, 2023}}</ref>

''[[Santa Claus: A Morality]]'' was probably Cummings's most successful play. It is an allegorical Christmas fantasy presented in one act of five scenes. The play was inspired by his daughter Nancy, with whom he was reunited in 1946. It was first published in the Harvard College magazine, ''Wake''. The play's main characters are Santa Claus, his family (Woman and Child), Death, and Mob. At the outset of the play, Santa Claus's family has disintegrated due to their lust for knowledge (Science). After a series of events, however, Santa Claus's faith in love and his rejection of the materialism and disappointment he associates with Science are reaffirmed, and he is reunited with Woman and Child.

===Art===
Cummings was an avid painter, referring to writing and painting as his <q>twin obsessions</q><ref>{{Cite book |last=Cohen |first=Milton |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/59693901 |title=Poetandpainter: The aesthetics of E. E. Cummings's early works |date=1987 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |isbn=0-8143-1845-2 |oclc=59693901}}</ref> and to himself as a <q>poetandpainter.</q><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Cohen |first=Milton |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/9353165 |title=E. E. Cumming's paintings: The hidden career |date=1982 |publisher=University of Texas at Dallas |oclc=9353165}}</ref> He painted <q>continuously, relentlessly, from childhood until his death, and left in his estate more than 1600 oils and watercolors (a figure that does not include the works he sold during his career) and over 9,000 drawings.</q><ref name=":2" /> In a self-interview from ''Foreword to an Exhibit: II'' (1945), the artist asked himself, <q>Tell me, doesn't your painting interfere with your writing?</q> and answered, <q>Quite the contrary: they love each other dearly.</q><ref>{{cite book |last1=Cummings |first1=E. E. |title=E. E. Cummings: A Miscellany |date=1966 |publisher=Peter Owen Limited |location=London |page=316 |edition=First British Commonwealth |url=https://archive.org/details/eecummingsmiscel0000unse/page/n9/mode/2up}}</ref>

Cummings had more than 30 exhibits of his paintings in his lifetime.<ref name=":2" /> He received substantial acclaim as an American [[Cubism|cubist]] and an abstract, avant garde painter between the World Wars, but with the publication of his books ''[[The Enormous Room]]'' and ''[[Tulips and Chimneys]]'' in the 1920s, his reputation as a poet eclipsed his success as a visual artist.<ref name=":2" /> In 1931, he published a limited edition volume of his artwork entitled ''[[CIOPW]]'', named for his media of charcoal, ink, oil, pencil, and watercolor. About this same time, he began to break from [[Modernism|Modernist]] aesthetics and employ a more subjective and spontaneous style;<ref name=":2" /> his work became more representational: landscapes, nudes, still lifes, and portraits.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hobbs |first=Patricia |date=2018-10-18 |title=Recent Gift Illustrates Poet's 'Twin Obsessions' |url=https://columns.wlu.edu/recent-gift-illustrates-poets-twin-obsessions/ |access-date=2023-02-21 |website=The Columns |language=en}}</ref>

===Name and capitalization===
Cummings's publishers and others have often echoed the unconventional [[orthography]] in his poetry by writing his name in lower case.<ref name="friedman92" /> Cummings himself used both the lowercase and capitalized versions, though he most often signed his name with capitals.<ref name="friedman92">{{cite journal |last=Friedman |first= Norman |date=1992 |title=Not "e. e. cummings" |journal=Spring |volume=1 |pages=114–121 |url= http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cummings/caps.htm |access-date=December 13, 2005}}</ref>

The use of lower case for his initials was popularized in part by the title of some books, particularly in the 1960s, printing his name in lower case on the cover and spine. In the preface to ''E. E. Cummings: The Growth of a Writer'' by Norman Friedman, critic Harry T. Moore notes Cummings "had his name put legally into lower case, and in his later books the titles and his name were always in lower case".<ref name=preface/> According to Cummings's widow, however, this is incorrect.<ref name="friedman92" /> She wrote to Friedman: "You should not have allowed H. Moore to make such a stupid & childish statement about Cummings & his signature." On February 27, 1951, Cummings wrote to his French translator D. Jon Grossman that he preferred the use of upper case for the particular edition they were working on.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Friedman |first=Norman |date=1995 |title=Not "e. e. cummings" Revisited |journal=Spring |volume=5 |pages=41–43 |url= http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cummings/caps2.html |access-date=May 12, 2007}}</ref> One Cummings scholar believes that on the rare occasions that Cummings signed his name in all lower case, he may have intended it as a gesture of humility, not as an indication that it was the preferred orthography for others to use.<ref name="friedman92" /> Additionally, ''[[The Chicago Manual of Style]]'', which prescribes favoring non-standard capitalization of names in accordance with the bearer's strongly stated preference, notes "E. E. Cummings can be safely capitalized; it was one of his publishers, not he himself, who lowercased his name."<ref name="chicago84">{{cite book |publisher=Chicago University Press|date=2010|title=Chicago Manual of Style|edition=16|section=Capitalization of Personal Names|page=388}}</ref>

==Adaptations==
In 1943, modern dancer and choreographer, [[Jean Erdman]] presented "The Transformations of Medusa, Forever and Sunsmell" with a commissioned score by [[John Cage]] and a spoken text from the title poem by E. E. Cummings, sponsored by the [[Arts Club of Chicago]]. Erdman also choreographed "Twenty Poems" (1960), a cycle of E. E. Cummings's poems for eight dancers and one actor, with a commissioned score by [[Teiji Ito]]. It was performed in the round at the [[Circle in the Square Theatre]] in Greenwich Village.

Numerous composers have set Cummings's poems to music:
* In 1970, [[Pierre Boulez]] composed ''[[Cummings ist der Dichter]]'' ('cummings is the Poet') from poems by E. E. Cummings.<ref>{{IRCAM work|id=6957|title=Pierre Boulez: ''cummings ist der dichter''}}</ref>
* [[Aribert Reimann]] set Cummings to music in "Impression IV" (1961) for soprano and piano.<ref>{{cite book |url= http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2743128|title=Impression IV : nach einem Gedicht von E.E. Cummings : four Singstimme und Klavier (1961) / Aribert Reimann. music|first1=Aribert|last1=Reimann|first2=E. E.|last2=Cummings|date=1990 |publisher=Schott |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
* [[Italy|Italian]] [[composer]] [[Luciano Berio]]'s 1960 composition ''Circles'' is a setting of three poems by E. E. Cummings, including the poems "Stinging", "Riverly Is a Flower", and "N(o)w".<ref>{{Cite web |date=2008-12-04 |title=Luciano Berio |url=http://www.jefferyoliver.com/music/berio.html |access-date=2025-02-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081204083845/http://www.jefferyoliver.com/music/berio.html |archive-date=December 4, 2008 }}</ref>
* [[Morton Feldman]] (1926–1987) in 1951 composed "4 Songs to e.e. cummings" for soprano, piano and cello, using material from Cummings's ''50 Poems'' of 1940: "!Blac", "Air", "(Sitting In A Tree-)" and "(Moan)".
* The Icelandic singer [[Björk]] used lines from Cummings's poem "I Will Wade Out" for the lyrics of "Sun in My Mouth" on her 2001 album ''[[Vespertine]]''. On her next album, ''[[Medúlla]]'' (2004), Björk used his poem "It May Not Always Be So" as the lyrics for the song "Sonnets/Unrealities XI".
* The American composer [[Eric Whitacre]] wrote [[Eric Whitacre#SATB choral|a cycle of works for]] choir titled ''The City and the Sea'', which consists of five poems by Cummings set to music. He also wrote music for "little tree" and "i carry your heart", among others.
* Others who have composed settings for his poems include, among many others:<ref name="lieder">{{citation |title=Author: E. E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings (1894–1962) |date=April 25, 2019 |work=The LiederNet Archive |url= http://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_author_texts.html?AuthorId=621 |access-date=June 10, 2019}}</ref>{{hlist|[[Dominic Argento]]| [[William Bergsma]]| [[Leonard Bernstein]]| [[Marc Blitzstein]]| [[John Cage]]| [[Romeo Cascarino]]| [[Aaron Copland]]| [[Serge de Gastyne]]| [[David Diamond (composer)|David Diamond]]| [[John Woods Duke|John Duke]]| [[Margaret Garwood]]| [[Daron Hagen]]| [[Michael Hedges]]| [[Timothy Hoekman]]| [[Richard Hundley]]| [[Barbara Kolb]]| [[Leonard Lehrman]]| [[Robert Manno]]| [[Salvatore Martirano]]| [[William Mayer (composer)|William Mayer]]| [[John Musto]]| [[Paul Nordoff]]| [[Tobias Picker]]| [[Vincent Persichetti]]| [[Ned Rorem]]| [[Peter Schickele]]| [[Elie Siegmeister]]| [[Ann Loomis Silsbee]]| [[Aki Takase]]| [[Hugo Weisgall]]| [[Dan Welcher]]| [[James Yannatos]]| [[Matthew Peterson]]}}

==Awards==
During his lifetime, Cummings received numerous awards in recognition of his work, including:
* [[The Dial#The Dial Award|Dial Award]] (1925)<ref name="fountn bio">{{cite web |title=Poets: E. E. Cummings |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/e-e-cummings |website=Poetry Foundation |language=en |access-date=9 August 2023 |archive-date=October 1, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171001232753/https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/e-e-cummings}}</ref>
* [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] (1933)<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |url= https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/e-e-cummings/|title=John Simon Guggenheim Foundation {{!}} E. E. Cummings}}</ref>
* [[Shelley Memorial Award]] for Poetry (1945)<ref>{{Cite web |url= https://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/awards/frost_and_shelley/shelley_winners/|title=Shelley Winners – Poetry Society of America |work=poetrysociety.org |access-date=20 April 2018}}</ref>
* Harriet Monroe Prize from ''Poetry'' magazine (1950)<ref>{{Cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1950/06/11/archives/poetry-award-is-made-ee-cummings-wins-the-1950-harriet-monroe-prize.html|title=Poetry Award Is Made; E. E. Cummings Wins the 1950 Harriet Monroe Prize|date=June 11, 1950|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=20 April 2018|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
* Fellowship of [[American Academy of Poets]] (1950)<ref name="aap">{{cite web |title=E. E. Cummings |url=https://poets.org/poet/e-e-cummings |website=Poets.org |publisher=Academy of American Poets |language=en}}</ref>
* Guggenheim Fellowship (1951)<ref name=":0" />
* [[Charles Eliot Norton]] Professorship at Harvard (1952–1953)<ref name="aap"/>
* Special citation from the [[National Book Award]] Committee for his ''Poems, 1923–1954'' (1957)
* [[Bollingen Prize]] in Poetry (1958)<ref name="aap"/>
* Boston Arts Festival Award (1957)
* Two-year [[Ford Foundation]] grant of $15,000 (1959)<ref name="aap"/>

==Books==
[[File:EecummingsLeidenWallPoem.jpg|upright=1.35|thumb|"the hours rise up" on a [[Wall poems in Leiden|wall in Leiden]] ]]

===Prose books===
* ''[[The Enormous Room]]'' (1922)
* ''[[Eimi (book)|EIMI]]'' (1933), Soviet travelogue
* ''[[Fairy Tales (Cummings)|Fairy Tales]]'' (1965), collection of short stories

===Poetry===
* ''[[Tulips and Chimneys]]'' (1923)
* ''&'' (1925), self-published
* ''XLI Poems'' (1925)
* ''[[is 5]]'' (1926)
* ''ViVa'' (1931)
* ''[[No Thanks (collection)|No Thanks]]'' (1935)
* ''Collected Poems'' (1938)
* ''50 Poems'' (1940)
* ''[[1 × 1]]'' (1944)
* ''XAIPE: Seventy-One Poems'' (1950)
* ''Poems, 1923–1954'' (1954)
* ''95 Poems'' (1958)
* ''Selected Poems 1923-1958'' (1960)
* ''73 Poems'' (1963, posthumous)
* ''Etcetera: The Unpublished Poems'' (1983)
* ''Complete Poems, 1904–1962'', edited by George James Firmage (2008), Liveright
* ''Erotic Poems'', edited by George James Firmage (2010), Norton

===Plays===
* ''[[Him (Cummings play)|HIM]]'' (1927)
* ''[[Santa Claus: A Morality]]'' (1946)

=== Collections ===
* ''[[CIOPW]]'' (1931), art works
* ''i—six nonlectures'' (1953), [[Harvard University Press]]

==References==
===Poems cited===
Full text of poetry available at:
{{notelist|28em}}

=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

=== General and cited references ===
{{refbegin|indent=yes}}
* {{cite book |title=Twentieth-century American Literature |last=Bloom |first=Harold |author-link=Harold Bloom |url=https://archive.org/details/twentiethcentury03haro/page/1814/mode/2up|volume=3|location=New York|publisher=Chelsea House Publishers|date=1985|isbn=978-0-87754-802-7|url-access=registration}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Friedman |editor-first=Norman |title=E. E. Cummings: A collection of critical essays |date=1972 |isbn=978-0-13-195552-3 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |location=Englewood Cliffs, N.J., U.S. |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/eecummingscollec0000unse/page/n7/mode/2up}} {{ISBN|978-0-9829733-0-1}}
* {{cite book |last=Friedman |first=Norman |title=E. E. Cummings the Art of His Poetry |location=Baltimore |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |date=1967}}
* {{cite book |last1=Friedman |first1=Norman |title=E. E. Cummings: The growth of a writer |date=1964 |location=Carbondale |publisher=Southern Illinois University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/eecummingsgrowth0000frie/page/n7/mode/2up |id=With a preface by Harry Thornton Moore |isbn=0-8093-0978-5|url-access=registration|postscript=:|ref=FriedmanBook}}
** Chapter 10. {{cite book |last1=Friedman |first1=Norman |title=E. E. Cummings: The growth of a writer |location=Carbondale |publisher=Southern Illinois University Press |chapter=''Xaipe'' (1950), ''95 Poems'' (1958) |date=May 22, 1964 |pages=152–173 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/eecummingsgrowth0000frie/page/152/mode/2up |display-authors=0|ref=FriedmanChapter10}}
** Chapter 11. {{cite book |last1=Friedman |first1=Norman |title=E. E. Cummings: The growth of a writer |location=Carbondale |publisher=Southern Illinois University Press |pages=174–186 |chapter=''i: six nonlectures'' (1953) |date=May 22, 1964 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/eecummingsgrowth0000frie/page/174/mode/2up |display-authors=0|ref=FriedmanChapter11}}
* {{Cite book |last=Kennedy |first=Richard S. |title=Dreams in the Mirror |edition=2nd |date=October 17, 1994 |orig-date=1980 |publisher=Liveright |location=New York |isbn=0-87140-155-X |url= https://archive.org/details/dreamsinmirrorbi0000kenn|url-access=registration}}
* {{cite book|last=Sawyer-Lauçanno |first=Christopher |title=E. E. Cummings: A Biography |publisher=Sourcebooks |date=2004|url=https://archive.org/details/eecummingsbiogra00sawy/page/256/mode/2up |isbn=978-1-57071-775-8|url-access=registration}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |title=Poet and Painter: The Aesthetics of E. E. Cummings' Early Work |last=Cohen |first=Milton A. |publisher=Wayne State University Press |date=1987 |isbn=978-0-8143-1845-4|ref=none}}
* Galgano, Andrea, ''La furiosa ricerca di Edward E. Cummings'', in ''Mosaico'', Roma, Aracne, 2013, pp.&nbsp;441–444 {{ISBN|978-88-548-6705-5}}
* Heusser, Martin. ''I Am My Writing: The Poetry of E. E. Cummings''. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 1997.
* Hutchinson, Hazel. ''The War That Used Up Words: American Writers and the First World War''. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015.
* James, George, ''E. E. Cummings: A Bibliography''.
* McBride, Katharine, ''A Concordance to the Complete Poems of E. E.Cummings''.
* [[Christopher Mott|Mott, Christopher]]. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20090224122955/http://gvsu.edu/english/cummings/Mott4.htm The Cummings Line on Race"], ''Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society'', vol. 4, pp.&nbsp;71–75, Fall 1995.
* [[Norman, Charles]], ''E. E. Cummings: The Magic-Maker'', Boston, Little Brown, 1972.
* {{cite journal |last1=Ordeman |first1=John T. |last2=Firmage |first2=George J. |title=Cummings' Titles |journal=Spring |date=October 2000 |volume=New Series |issue=9 |pages=160–170 |publisher=E. E. Cummings Society |jstor=43915118 }}

==External links==
{{refbegin}}
{{sister project links|d=Q298703|n=no|b=no|v=no|voy=no|s=Author:Edward Estlin Cummings|wikt=no|m=no|mw=no|species=no}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/e-e-cummings}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=2755|name=E. E. Cummings}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Edward Estlin Cummings}}
* {{Librivox author |id=2655}}
* [http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/e-e-cummings-3 E. E. Cummings, Lifelong Unitarian] Biography of Cummings and his relationship with Unitarianism
* [http://www.librarything.com/profile/e.e.cummingslibrary E. E. Cummings Personal Library] at [[LibraryThing]]
* [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.Hough:hou00946 Papers of E. E. Cummings] at the [[Houghton Library]] at [[Harvard University]]
* [http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00191.xml&query=cummings&query-join=and E. E. Cummings Collection] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516102018/http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead%2F00191.xml&query=cummings&query-join=and |date=May 16, 2008 }} at the [[Harry Ransom Center]] at the [[University of Texas at Austin]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061003230902/http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=81323 Poems by E. E. Cummings at PoetryFoundation.org]
* [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34132-2004Oct14.html Jonathan Yardley, ''E. E. Cummings: A Biography'', Sunday, October 17, 2004, Page BW02, ''The Washington Post Book Review'']
* [http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cummings/ ''SPRING'':The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society]
* [http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/a_f/cummings/cummings.htm Modern American Poetry] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111028055013/http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/cummings/cummings.htm |date=October 28, 2011 }}
* [http://lccn.loc.gov/n79038464 E. E. Cummings] at [[Library of Congress]] Authorities&nbsp;– with 202 catalog records
* [http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/e-e-cummings Biography and poems of E. E. Cummings at Poets.org]
* [https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_4078673 Finding aid to Edward Estlin Cummings correspondence at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.]
{{refend}}

{{E. E. Cummings|state=uncollapsed}}
{{Portal bar|Biography|Poetry|United States}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cummings, E. E.}}
[[Category:E. E. Cummings| ]]
[[Category:1894 births]]
[[Category:1962 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American poets]]
[[Category:American Field Service personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:American male poets]]
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[[Category:American Unitarians]]
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[[Category:Bollingen Prize recipients]]
[[Category:Burials at Forest Hills Cemetery (Boston)]]
[[Category:Caedmon Records artists]]
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[[Category:Harvard Advocate alumni]]
[[Category:Lost Generation writers]]
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[[Category:Modernist writers]]
[[Category:People from Carroll County, New Hampshire]]
[[Category:People from Greenwich Village]]
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[[Category:Poets from Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Sonneteers]]
[[Category:Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:People with lower case names and pseudonyms]]