somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands ( )

A wonderful read for poetry month! Cummings' poetry in their non-traditional form, forces one to think about the meaning of each poem. ( )

Some lovely and playful poetry, with clever wordplay and a deep sense of humanism at the base of it. I confess I enjoyed the earlier poems in this selection the best, as those from his middle to late years were generally less accessible and impactful to me. All in all though, a nice book to sample from while out in a park in the sunshine.

Just this poem, from 1935:

may i feel said he
(i’ll squeal said she
just once said he)
it’s fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let’s go said he
not too far said she
what’s too far said he
where are are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you’re willing said he
(but you’re willing said she

but it’s your life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don’t stop said she
oh on said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you’re divine!said he
(you are Mine said she) ( )

With e.e. cummings being the way he is and the title of the book being 100 Selected Poems, I didn't really expect this to take me that long to complete. This particular collection of his work contains all of the ones that I remember he did and more. I actually studied e.e. cummings a bit in High School, but that was a while ago.

If you have read his poetry before, you know what to expect; interesting use of punctuation, no capitalization in some areas, bunching words together for effect and other ingenious devices make him out to be quite the wordsmith. Then again, this collection doesn't really show how he was received, though I can assume it was positive if it is still in print and all of that.

Now on to the other thing. This book is quite bare bones when it comes to content. Though it does show the poems with their original typesetting, which is pretty cool. Though I suppose that if they did that it wouldn't be much of a poem anymore. ( )

My very last book for the book bingo challenge! I was under major time crunch, and should have known better than to pick poetry for a fast read, but it was "a book with a number in the title," and it fit both the poetry category and the to-read categories of my personal reading resolutions for the year, which have been sadly neglected during the book bingo scramble this summer.

I spent the first half of this book struggling with how to read it. A few already known poems I loved, and a few more sparkled, but too many I failed to connect with. About halfway through I finally realized I needed to stop reading the poems and start listening to them in my brain. Then they finally came alive. The last twelve or so I actually read aloud to myself on a bench near Impression 5 when I got to work early the last day of the summer program. I hope no one overheard me as I'm sure I would have sounded crazy, but it was lovely.

I didn't fully unpack these poems in the mode of my ModPo class, and I have some regrets about that, but I enjoyed the experience all the same. ( )