since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
– the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
One thing i really wonder about in Cummings poems is he talks about spring and death alot. What is the main theme behind spring and death in poems like “in just spring” and “Suppose life is an old man flowers on his head”. PLease reply me as soon as possible and if possible send a copy of reply to my email too. Thank YOu
if you try to analyze (i.e. understand the syntax of) this poem, you just don’t get it. this celebration of the transcending power of love is my all-time favorite poem.
It was exciting to learn of how many interpertations of this poem there was. I am writing a paper on this poem and that is helping me a lot. Thank you Elizabeth from the U.S. your words were a great help. if anyone else could help please feel free to email your words of wisdom to me.
this poem is of my favorites… at first i didnt understand it, i chose to do it for an english project, and after i was done i really got what it was trying to say…its so.. perfect, every line has its own meaning for every person.. mine is “for life is not a paragraph” which is sooo true
Cummings poetry is a reflection of his personal life. He wrote to and about the people and events around him. Why she is crying seems quite obvious, given his comment immediately following his “don’t cry.” “The best” of Cummings brain, was his WORK, his poetry, which he was internationally famous for. He comforts her by explaining that his great poetic talent is nothing to him, compared to the effect her love has on him. So clearly, she is crying because she feels inadequate–she doesn’t feel worthy of such a “great man.” This happens to everyone who rides the arm of a celebrity; eventually they feel unworthy. In a typically ironic and perfect way, Cummings uses writing metaphors and terms throughout the piece, since they are what is being discussed.
It is my favorite poem, and as others have stated, it is a modern carpe diem poem–“Join me in joyously living in the moment,” with Cummings oft-repeated admonition: “…and don’t worry about the rules.”
LC
in this poem he puts down death (over love) in 2 metaphors. This feeling is so intense and great that he does not want to think in the possibility of it being done with by death. notice something ” eyelind’s” (ur eyes r the window 2 ur soul).
My favorite line in this poem is ” life is not a paragraph”.; it’s so true. Life is not like something that we can write and then go back if we screw up, and rewrite. well said e!
Take it however you want to. This poem embodies, for me, the thoughts that run through my head when I look at my lover. ee cummings…you speak volumes in broken lines.
As many have before me, I will offer my reading of the poem, stanza by stanza.
“since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;”
I take this to mean that the flow of time is irrelevant; that when you first feel something, everything else occurs simultaneously. If you will ultimately develop a relationship with this person, that is evident from the first moment you meet. I take this to be cummings’ explanation of the age-old whispering of newfound lovers, “I feel like I’ve known you forever.”
“wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world”
Spring is a common theme in cummings’ poetry. He introduces it fairly often as a symbol for new life; new worlds for exploration. Here, I see this to mean that the novelty of intense love can make one do things that one would otherwise not do, “while Spring is in the world” thus implying that the love is in its beginning stages, an implication strengthened by the previous stanza (a nearly Donne-like poem perhaps–“If we EVER will have sex, why not now? Syntax doesn’t matter.”).
“my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
– the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says”
Blood approving can have many readings. It perhaps suggests that down to the very marrow of his existance, he loves this lady. Or, maybe, it suggests the flush of a new love.
Kisses being a better fate than wisdom is fairly self-explanatory. It’s a stark contrast to the poems of such literary greats as Shakespeare, who flatter their lovers by reaffirming their immortalization in their poetry.
It’s a typical cummings thing to do, swearing by flowers. In his poetry, flowers are given a near-idolized position. In fact, poetry as a whole is often seen as “flowery.”
At this point, I fall into a reiteration of other readings–I agree that “the best gesture of my brain is less than / your eyelids’ flutter” hints at an ineffability of love. All this poetry, perhaps he means, can be at once surpassed by a single flutter of your eyelids.
“we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph”
What love has not been characterized by a feeling of being “for each other”…has not been characterized by laughter and warm embraces?
I take the last line of this stanza to mean that life is not a paragraph, with strict syntax and grammar and sentences and punctuation. Time, again, is both flowing and occurring simulatneously.
“And death i think is no parenthesis”
It’s interesting to see this sort of self-awareness in cummings’ poetry. He is the master of parentheses, throwing them in places where, to even the least critical grammatical eye, they don’t belong. With these parentheses, he makes brilliant commentary on the nature of life and love. Yet this poem is lacking in any parentheses. A parenthesis orders things; gives them a syntax and a structure, something that cummings evidentally was trying to avoid in this poem.
And even death, he boldly claims, could not give a syntax to this exciting new love.
when cummings says is comparing his brain to her eyelashes, he is proving that love can’t be analized. when people can forget about cause and effect and simply love love, then one has found true love. this is my favorite poem because it is the absence of all stress and worry. cummings is describing a human’s creation of Eden.
since feeling is first is a poem about physical attraction, carpe diem, take the chance etc.
At first, I didnt really understand this poem. But after reading everyone’s comments on it, I realize that it truly is a carpe diem type of poem. It just shows you how deep his love for this woman really is. He tells her that he would prefer a single kiss from her than infinite wisdom. I know hes dead, but great poem e!
This was the greatest poem ive ever read, this poem is
very true.
i see this poem as a modern carpe diem
Just today we did an analysis of this poem in a poetry course i am taking in my school. It’s such a beautiful piece of work. It shows the importance of love above all things, and that it’s totally unpredictable and can’t be “syntaxed” or put into form. (atleast thats what i’ve managed to discover). But i like all ur analysis’s of it too. Just a lovely poem, and the ending brings it to such a mysterious yet somehow complete closure thats just so compelling. Well, yes, i’m done with this commentation now.
Sorry, Krystia, but you are incorrect about the last few lines of the poem. What Cummings means by “life is not a paragraph” is that life is not structured. It has no complete sentences, no periods, often, no initial purpose. One cannot write out their life and then live it as though it were structured. Life has run-on sentences, errors, incorrect syntax and often no puncuation. Furthermore, when Cummings ends his poem, he is saying that death is no parenthesis. In most writing, a parenthesis is a side note, a mere though of the author in order to help the reader into further detail of explination. Cummings takes this ideal and says death is more than that, death, in itself, it an event and should not merely be a side note of life. That’s what the last two lines mean, unlike your orginial opinion of living life to the fullest. Nevertheless, this is one of my favorite poems, and Cummings does a remarkably beautiful job expressing the mere joy of love.
“the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter” This is a lovely way of showing just how powerful his love for her truly is. The most brilliant, genius thought of his is no match simply for her “eyelids’ flutter”. There is no rational explanation for this, just like the “syntax” can never be understoood because love holds none.
i tink one cannot truly understand the meaning of this poem unless one has expirenced love. Truly, love is illogical and has no reason to it. Love confuses one at first but one must except it for if you do it is the most wonderful expierence in the entire world.
” There are certain things in which ine is unable to believe for the simple reason that he never ceases to feel them. Things of this sort-things which are always inside of us and in fact are us and which consequently will never be pushed off or away where we can begin thinking about them-are no longer things; they, and the us which they are, equals A Verb; an IS.”
– E.E Cummings
follow it, believe it, apply it to this genius poem. simply emotion over reason…i wouldn’t be surprised if Cummings was even the relative reincarnation of Rosseau.
First off, I’m not surprised that you don’t understand. Cummings is not the easiest poet to follow. I’m not an expert by any means of Cummings, but it seems to me that he is of the tradition among poets who let you read your own meaning into the words he wrote. That being said, he is still a writer, still a poet, and his words are meant to put you in a certain frame of mind.
Here’s my reading of it. The first stanza tells us that the root of love is the feeling and when you start to get involved in love, things may not make much sense to your brain. “There is no syntax” or order or sense to the way we feel. Furthermore, if you try to make sense of it, you miss out on it–“will never wholly kiss you.” Love also puts us in the frame of mind to not care about sensibility. Cummings mostly just elaborates on this sentiment throughout the poem, ending with the assurance that “life is not a paragraph, and death I think is no paranthesis.” In other words, it’s ok that love doesn’t make sense because life isn’t sensible and orderly, and neither is death. He uses the symbol of a paragraph, or written language, to which we are all familiar, with all its order and rules, and contrasts that with feelings and love and life and death.
One item of note that is interesting. Right in the middle of the poem he reveals to us his motivation for writing these words. “Dear lady…don’t cry.” It seems that the woman he speaks to is upset (probably about how insensible love is). This poem is meant to alay her fears telling her that love, like life, is not set on rules and order and sensibility.