This is absolutely beautiful.
After taking a “Tradition and Innovation” first year English class, I was trained and became interested in looking deeper into the meaning of literature. Whether it be lyrics to a song, a short poem, a one-liner on an ad — I’ve been encouraged in learning to be innovative in interpreting works.
In this poem, “i carry your heart with me (i carry it in”, E.E. Cummings talks about a love that is within his heart. One’s heart is forever with them, until the day that they lay to rest; it beats and allows blood to circulate effectively throughout the body, allowing one to be alive. The “heart” that he carries with him beats because he’s alive. Like a shadow, where he goes, the heart goes.
The line that I question and can be discussed is, “and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant/and whatever a sun will always sing is you” — to me, I see that as the beauty and shining ability the sun and moon has to illuminate the earth. These were created to be a light in the night and day; E.E. Cummings sees beauty in the brightness of this love in his heart.
I love how he ends with, “and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart”. After telling the reader about the heart he carries within, the beauty of the light beaming on earth, he leaves us to ponder about what the “wonder” is that keeps the starts apart. What is it that makes the world go round? Makes his heart beat? Allows him to admire nature?
WOW. 15 lines of beauty.
Today’s poem of the day for this final week of National Poetry Month (oh, where does the time go?) is one from E. E. Cummings, that master manipulator of language: i carry your heart with me(i carry it in. One of the most prolific and experimental poets of the twentieth century, Cummings cultivated a distinct style that reimagined the rules of grammar and even invented its own words. He’s know for being weird and at times virtually impossible to understand, but if you’ve taken a spin through the massive volume E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems, 1904-1962 (Liverlight Publishing Corporation, 1994), you’ll know that he’s also a romantic whose body of work consists largely of love poems. This is one of them (and it’s not impossible to read!) Enjoy.
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i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
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