Oct 31 24

12 min read

Authenticity

Learn how feeling is the key to writing authentically

"[since feeling is first]"

Read EE Cummings' "Since Feeling is First" where feeling is the key to finding one's authentic voice.

How can we speak without sounding like everyone else?We're buried in years of dried up thinking and societal sludge. The secret to digging ourselves out is found in the poetry of EE Cummings, the architect of unorthodox verse.

E.E. Cummings was a 20th-century American poet recognized for his unconventional use of syntax and form.His subversion of syntax is just a part of a life spent subverting society and its conventions. In the next few episodes, we'll dip our fingers into a life free of convention.

Be warned. Finding one's authentic voice is not easy. The mind can be relentless and aggravating. But beneath its clumsy efforts, you'll soon find a space for a life of joyful self-expression.Let's look at the Cummings poem, "[since feeling is first]," a short sortie against syntax.

since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you;

Since feeling comes first and thinking only later, thought can never know you intimately. It's an ironically logical observation for an ode to passion.Feel the gap between yourself and your mind. Paint the landscape between your original experience and the syntax or rules that cover it.

wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the worldmy blood approves, and kisses are a better fate than wisdom lady i swear by all flowers.

Cummings swears on "all flowers" that kisses are better than wisdom. In other words, "YOLO, life is short; let's make out."

Swearing on flowers is another delightful irony, after all they're the epitome of impermanence. At least he swears on all of them, so he's wholly authentic...for the moment.In this moment, what do you swear on by "all flowers"? Of which claim does your blood approve?

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 paragraphAnd death i think is no parenthesis

Thinking is death for Cummings. The best gesture of our brains can't compete with the life going on around them.Today, keep your heart open to raw experience. It can often be more intricate, more captivating, and more profound than your most clever thought.

Nobody-But-Yourself: Part I

Discover the core of E.E. Cummings' insights on poetry as the pure essence of feeling, defying intellectual constructs.

In the following letter to young poets, Cummings claims that one must feel, not intellectualize, in order to be oneself.He underscores how difficult it is to express oneself authentically and sets a high bar for anyone who attempts it.

Cummings

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words. This may sound easy. It isn’t.A lot of people think or believe or know they feel—but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling—not knowing or believing or thinking.

Here the word "feeling" is used to describe raw experience, unmediated by the mind's various faculties.

Cummings writes from that space before the mind. In another poem, he writes, “now the ears of my ears awake and/now the eyes of my eyes are opened.”Find that sacred place that Cummings adores. Where is hearing heard? Where is seeing seen? Where is knowing known?

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel.Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.

The intellect may have its use, but according to E.E. Cummings, feeling is the road to authenticity.Because we're taught to think, our thinking is shared. But when we feel, we're "nobody-but-ourself." What within you is untaught? You can answer below or take this meditation with you.

We'll now read the second part of EE Cummings's letter to a young poet. Here Cummings emphasizes how easy it is to fall back into conformity.

To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t a poet can possibly imagine.

Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time—and whenever we do it, we’re not poets.

If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote something similar, “to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world—unless you’re not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.Does that sound dismal? It isn’t. It’s the most wonderful life on earth. Or so I feel.

"[somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond]"

Explore the power of love's vulnerability in EE Cummings' "[somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond]" and unveil new insights into this profound poetic journey. Learn more.

We started this course with Cummings defining a poet as "somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words."

Feeling is subtle. That place from where feeling arises must be subtler still, and so it's natural that the most practiced poets write poetry about this subtle Spring.

We call this type of poetry, "mystical verse."A mystical poem reads like a love poem—so much so that it’s often hard to tell if a poet’s gushing over a girl or God; a boy or Beyond.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the colour of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

[anyone lived in a pretty how town]

Discover Cummings' exploration of life's cycles and love's power in "[anyone lived in a pretty how town]."

EE Cummings wrote the following poem about "anyone" and "noone" in a "pretty how town."

In this town, life follows a routine, "sun moon stars rain." The townspeople also follow through their routines—they grow up, get married, and raise kids.

Meanwhile, "[anyone]" is love by "[noone]," who laughs when [anyone] feels joy and cries when [anyone] feels grief. A few of the kids notice this romance that grows "when by now and tree by leaf," but even they grow indifferent as they get older.

One day, [anyone] dies and [noone] joins them. Busy folk bury the couple "little by little."

anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small) cared for anyone not at all they sowed their isn't they reaped their same sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few and down they forgot as up they grew autumn winter spring summer) that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf she laughed his joy she cried his grief bird by snow and stir by still anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones laughed their cryings and did their dance (sleep wake hope and then)they said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon (and only the snow can begin to explain how children are apt to forget to remember with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess (and noone stooped to kiss his face) busy folk buried them side by side little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep and more by more they dream their sleep noone and anyone earth by april wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding) summer autumn winter spring reaped their sowing and went their came sun moon stars rain

The ending of this poem is cryptic. [anyone] and [noone] disappear into the past (i.e., "was by was") but emerge again in April.This town feels mythological, like Gabriel Márquez's Macondo. The poem feels like a creation myth—a reminder for [anyone] that [noone] loves them despite society's cold indifference. Each spring, this love will reemerge, "wish by spirit and if by yes."

Ourselves in the Sea

Explore the depths of self-discovery with E.E. Cummings' poignant "maggie and milly and molly and may." Learn what insights await you at the sea's edge.

This poem is ostensibly about four girls losing themselves in play. It reads like a nursery rhyme and is one of EE Cummings's more approachable works.Maggie finds a singing shell. Milly finds a star with languid (relaxed) fingers. Molly gets chased by a crab. And May finds a stone "as small as a world and as large as alone."

maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach(to play one day)and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were;and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone.For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea

It's a triumph whenever a writer can bring us back to that timeless place, what LM Montgomery called "the golden road of youth."But this poem is also an existential reassurance. Cummings concludes with the couplet: "whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea."