e. e. cummings

e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

Here are the notes I took: a few observations, and a list of the pieces he read. He never said we couldn’t do that. He gave us a lovely selection of his less-visual works, drawn from one volume before the intermission and from a more recent one afterward.

It’s notable that MIT was willing that he read “Thanksgiving (1956),” in which he castigates the United States (and others) for standing by and watching the Soviets crush the Hungarian uprising of that date. You’ll see it in my list: the 8th item after the intermission. I’m told that ever since he wrote the piece, he had insisted on including it in every public reading. With the effect that, in the last few years of his life, he was asked to read in public rather less frequently than before. Even Harvard, his own alma mater, had disinvited him from a major event, on that account.

I’ll never forget his nasal, sarcastic diction, as he read:

“…so rah-rah-rah democracy
let’s all be thankful as hell
and bury the statue of liberty
(because it begins to smell)”

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