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Poet: e.e. cummings
Poem: Buffalo Bill's
Comment 31 of 31, added on March 10th, 2008 at 4:30 PM.
the poem satirizes Buffalo Bill. He's sooo handsome and hand can shoot sooo fast; the word Jesus is an exclamation as in "Geez" or "Geewhiz!" both of which are derived from using the word "Jesus" as an exclamation point. Like everyone else, the blue-eyed handsome blonde shooter must die and face Mister Death, who is no more impressed with Bill than with anyone else. So, as others have stated Buffalo Bill is not measured by the superficial things which society said made him great. What did he do that was impressive, but look good and shoot fast and accurate? Death is not impressed. The poem is in sync with Cummings' "Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town," wherein, the everday people are impressed with anyone "not at all." But "anyone" though he is a "nobody," lives into eternity.
jon rice from United States
Comment 30 of 31, added on October 8th, 2007 at 9:10 PM.
I am very taken with the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and I think there is a striking similarity between his "Felix Randal" and "Buffalo Bill's"--it would be interesting to see a discussion of comparisons between these poets and John Donne ["Death be not Proud"], Emily Dickenson ["Because I could not stop for death..."] ["I heard a fly buzz when I died..."] Death in perhaps all poetry is an exploration or a "mining" of this Intruding Angel as a Definer of what it is to be human--and the poet defies the finality of death with the Eternal Word: "I shall not die--Scripta Manent !"
Andre from United States
Comment 29 of 31, added on September 29th, 2007 at 2:14 PM.
Though I'm no authority, I thought that it merely referred to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, where he would shoot clay pigeons as a trick. A "blue-eyed boy" is a treasured, or favorite, inferring that Buffalo Bill is quite the marked prize for death to have claimed. After all, he seemed so invinceable, but then he just died of kidney failure.
Jill
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Comments
the poem satirizes Buffalo Bill. He's sooo handsome and hand can shoot sooo fast; the word Jesus is an exclamation as in "Geez" or "Geewhiz!" both of which are derived from using the word "Jesus" as an exclamation point. Like everyone else, the blue-eyed handsome blonde shooter must die and face Mister Death, who is no more impressed with Bill than with anyone else. So, as others have stated Buffalo Bill is not measured by the superficial things which society said made him great. What did he do that was impressive, but look good and shoot fast and accurate? Death is not impressed. The poem is in sync with Cummings' "Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town," wherein, the everday people are impressed with anyone "not at all." But "anyone" though he is a "nobody," lives into eternity.
jon rice from United States