I was watching a chipmunk on my backyard deck. It was chewing away on a crocus bulb that it had taken from the box of them I had left there unplanted. I thought of our current model poem, "& sun &" by E.E. Cummings from his 100 Selected Poems.

It's a poem I first encountered in high school - where most of us first saw Cummings's poems. They were odd. They were different. And inevitably a few class poets would begin to eschew capitalization and punctuation in their poems. A very influential poet to adolescents. Also a poet often dismissed by readers when they are older.

Typography and grammar were his tools and toys. The critics never loved him as much as readers. Yet, he survives.

Later, a few students would pick up the big Complete Poems from my shelf and begin to skim. They always seemed disappointed to find so many "regular poems" in the book. But then they'd find

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

or a poem titled " r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r"  
and a stanza that said

always
             it's
                   Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

and they always seemed happy to read those poems. What more can I ask of him or them?

Your turn. Let words be toys and tools again. Play with the grammar, capitalization, spelling, word order, spacing and typography - but play for a reason.

See Paintings by Cummings and More of his poetry

CHICAGO

in chicago
we
walk
like
this

(wind, you know)

some
step lightly
'round mounds of trash,
sepia glass,
pain-in-the-ass         hop-
scotch

      some
      saunter sideways
      maybe bent,
    maybe not     some walk
sdrawkcab
finding shelter in gangways,

      alleyways,
hallways,
    doorways,

away from the freeze to a     safe place,
    warm place,
      un-breezy place to     smoke,

        shoot,
      snort,
        pop, sniff     or
          gulp in chicago
    we
      walk
    like
    this
(wind, you know)

Pammy

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
"Singing is speech slowed down."  Marshall McLuhan

At midnight
            in the garden gone wild
                                   at summer's end
I can hear the singing
                    all around me.
The desire of the moth
                    for the star.
The plant's roots singing
                    for the deep water.
The bird's blind song
                    of the day past.
Desires
                (fifteen feet wide and twice as deep)
solid
in mass yet
remarkably light to hold.

pointing North
spending half the night
upside-down.

I tried to harmonize
once,
only to discover      that we were all      singing
                                            our own
                                            notes,
in a
                             round
                              that
                              some
                              times
                             crosses
like constellated stars,
my own figure
             a woman
arms outstretched
and chained
at the wrists.

Lianna Wright

"The future’s not ours to see."

Not
to see
WHAT?
Ever’s future?
WHAT?
NOT OURS,
not ever!
Ours
to see
WHAT?
The (h)ours?
To
WHAT?
(For) ever
not ours!

Catherine M. LeGault




L

the p re cognition
y   our
face
s oft in
my dreams.


Ken Ronkowitz



LILY...

Time was music with Lily...
something played early...
certain mornings...
late autumn...
the aroma of coffee brewing over a small fire...
And the slow slow jazz of waking when...
Lily was inspired...
music became light...
there in the clearing where she danced...
Her feet through the leaves like...
small brooms sweeping time...

Andrew R Cohen

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