I have a challenge for you.
Can you figure out the meaning of this EE Cummings poem?
When I first read it I was confused, but the language enticed me. I kept reading and suddenly I cracked the code. I was amazed.
it's about fran
>>8215242
not quite...
Poems aren't ABOUT anything.
>>8215318
I'm afraid you're wrong.
What I mean is that this poem has a hidden meaning. You have to decide the language and metaphors, but this poem portrays a specific event
>>8215228
He gonna fuck a fat old prostitute named Fran.
wow op ur so smart im so glad u made this thread to show me how smart u r ive literally never red a poem before becuz they r too hard for my dumb brain to comprehend good thing we have smart genuses like u cracked these codes!!!!
go fuck yourself dumbass
it's about busting a big ol' fat nut in franny for the first time
>>8215228
this describes every woman.
I bet it's something really tedious like a reference to one of Jack the Ripper's victims
"u wot luv, I've got a mind to stahb you in the quim"
>>8215362
This is how I interpreted it. It reads like an exasperated love letter written by a sexually frustrated and unable patron of prostitutes.
>>8215228
>he reads for meaning
He is mystified by the whore and knows his question to why he is mystified will never be answered. That is also part of the allure of her (them).
sex. it's sex.
ee cummings is a hack
>>8216301
The whore could be interpreted as just a whore, but look at the language in the first stanza closer.
>>8216360
what is it job's wife? is that your big discovery? guess what: the discovery of an historical irony is the beginning of interpretation, not the end
>>8216367
You are a dick.
You were a douche when you didn't have to be.
You're a dick.
>>8216400
im sick and fucking tired of dropping shit like this in the 1st paragraph and spending the remaining pages in dense analysis of the resultant aporia and getting an A, while people spend their whole paper getting to the point that it's Job's Wife and also get an A. I'm sick and tired of people who think interpretation is solving riddles, that poetry is a long struggle to compose the most sublime joke, that the realization allegory is the end goal of literary criticism.
>>8216360
could we have another hint?
>>8216424
I feel bad for calling you a dick now - I'm sorry my dude. Your response is true - and I've never seen it put so succintly. I'm going to think about what you said for the next few days probably.
Thank you for writing all that.
>>8215228
Don't get the Job's wife thing. I was honestly about to posit that he was using the conceit of a whore to talk about his dick.
>>8216456
>I feel bad for calling you a dick now - I'm sorry my dude. Your response is true - and I've never seen it put so succintly. I'm going to think about what you said for the next few days probably.
>Thank you for writing all that.
I lolled
>>8215228
Brittle --- isn't that ALARMingly more like an object, not a human? a very physical word, it can be used metaphorically to mean a person is weak, but it more suggests an actually object.
"WOODEN big two feet". feet are like hands.
what is an object with two hands whose "tiniest whispered invitation / is like a clock striking in a dark house"?
An alarm clock. The "delicately wobbl[ing]" face like the FACE of a clock? The two feet which prop it up on the table?
What does the alarmclock represent? Time, and awakening. What did Christ say? "Arise, ye sleepers! For the hour of retribution is near!" Christianity (in its highest esoteric meaning) urges constant wakefulness, watchfulness, attention; the majority of humanity spends their life asleep, in a trance, not considering that they're going to die, that they have limitations, that there are things far more important than them. The ALARMCLOCK is what awakes them from this sleep, also what makes them consider the inevitable passage of time, further awakening them. What is time if not death? who is the man considering whether he should blasphemously ask God why he is perversely wedded to time and death but Job? Who is Job but all of us? Who is our wife but the killer of all, Time and Death intertwined?
If you're going abuse Cummings, we could at least look at the whole sonnet-cycle of whores.
FIVE AMERICANS (Sonnets) E. E. Cummings
I. LIZ
with breathing as (faithfully) her lownecked dress a little topples and slightly expands one square foot mired in silk wrinkling loth stocking begins queerly to do a few gestures to death, the silent shoulders are both slowly with pinkish ponderous arms bedecked whose white thick wrists deliver promptly to a deep lap enormous mindless hands, and no one knows what (i am sure of this) her blunt unslender, what her big unkeen "Business is rotten" the face yawning said what her mouth thinks of (if it were a kiss) distinct entirely melting sinuous lean . . . whereof this lady in some book had read
II. MAME
she puts down the handmirror. "Look at" arranging before me a mellifluous idiot grin (with what was nose upwrinkled into nothing earthly, while the slippery eyes drown in surging flesh). A thumblike index downdragging yanks back skin "see" (i, seeing, ceased to breathe). The plump left fist opening "wisdom." Flicker of gold. "Yep. No gas. Flynn"
the words drizzle untidily from released cheeks "I'll tell duh woild; some noive all right. Aint much on looks but how dat baby ached." and when i timidly hinted "novocaine?" the eyes outstart, curl, bloat, are newly baked and swaggering cookies of indignant light
III. GERT
joggle i think will do it although the glad monosyllable jounce possibly can tell better how the balloons move (as her ghost lurks, a Beau Brummel sticking in its threecornered always moist mouth) —jazz, for whose twitching lips, between you and me almost succeeds while toddle rings the bell. But if her tall corpsecoloured body seat itself (with the uncouth habitual dull jerk at garters) there's no sharpest neat word for the thing.
Her voice?
gruesome: a trull leaps from the lungs "gimme uh swell fite like up ter yknow, Rektuz, Toysday nite; where uh guy get gayn troze uh lobstersalad
(con.)
IV. MARJ
"life? Listen" the feline she with radishred legs said (crossing them slowly) "I'm asleep. Yep. Youse is asleep kid and everybody is." And i hazarded "god" (blushing slightly)—"O damn
ginks like dis Gawd" opening slowly slowly them—then carefully the rolypoly voice squatting on a mountain of gum did something like a whisper, "even her." "The madam?" I emitted; vaguely watching that mountainous worthy in the fragile act of doing her eyebrows.—Marj's laughter smacked me: pummeling the curtains, drooped to a purr . . i left her permanently smiling
V. FRAN
should i entirely ask of god why on the alert neck of this brittle whore delicately wobbles an improbably distinct face, and how these wooden big two feet conclude happeningly the unfirm drooping bloated calves i would receive the answer more or less deserved, Young fellow go in peace, which i do, being as Dick Mid once noted lifting a Green River (here's to youse) "a bloke wot's well behaved" . . . and always try to not wonder how let's say elation causes the bent eyes thickly to protrude— or why her tiniest whispered invitation is like a clock striking in a dark house
>>8217046
Yes. You should be scared.
>>8216424
I agree wholeheartedly my man but also pls remember you're on /lit/ in the summertime
>>8216424
>im sick and fucking tired of dropping shit like this in the 1st paragraph and spending the remaining pages in dense analysis of the resultant aporia and getting an A, while people spend their whole paper getting to the point that it's Job's Wife and also get an A. I'm sick and tired of people who think interpretation is solving riddles, that poetry is a long struggle to compose the most sublime joke, that the realization allegory is the end goal of literary criticism.
god i would clap standing up if you were here
i think you're wrong
>>8216869
that was a good read and good gnosis
>people think it's job's wife
Cmon someone's gotta be able to get it right
>>8216869
wonderful post thanks
I read it for the sound and the images. I don't give a damn about the meaning. Either it's apparent, in which case I discover it and maybe appreciate it, or it isn't, in which case I don't give a damn as long as the sounds and the images excite me.
I am an hedonist. I read and write poetry for the sex in it.
ee cummings makes perfect sense when you're high. or not really but y'know, do I care care when I'm high? that's why I keep a copy around.
MARY. FUCKING. MAGDALENE.
MADE OF ACTUAL FUCKING WOOD.
IN A FUCKING CHURCH.
>>8219019
>I am an hedonist. I read and write poetry for the sex in it.
Gross
>>8219440
>>8217097
Ok OP why don't you just tell us your huge revelation
>>8215228
Fuck off, orf.
>>8219019
this desu
some things are good at being puzzles but not Cummings
>>8216424
so right it hurts
>>8220353
ah, is this another "orf pretends he knows anything about poetry" episode?
>>8220300
Ok
The woman is a poem or a book.
The "alert neck" is a page
The "distinct face" is the words on a page.
The two wooden feet are the front and back cover.
The calves are the pages on either side of the page that's being read.
The narrator is trying to make sense of what is written on the page, but he ends up going in peace.
Therefore the poem is a metaphor for itself.
This interpretation opens a whole new world of meaning to the poem, so I won't write it all out and I'll let you work it out.
>>8221062
holy shit this is so wrong lmfao
>>8221062
covers aren't made of wood you cunt.
>>8221159
>poorfag
>>8221062
So in the first stanza he's asking why a book has covers and pages?
Personally I don't think so, I prefer other suggested interpretations in this thread.
