No I have not lost my marbles, yes my capslock key is in perfect working order and yes ee cummings is correct. Known as the lower case poet ee cummings would often sign off his writings and compose his poetry completely in lower case letters leading to his being recognised by his lack of capitalisation in his works.
This reputation of grammatical anarchy was brought into question later in cumming’s life when his then wife claimed that in fact he preferred the use of uppercase letters where grammatically appropriate and cummings himself wrote to his editor saying he would prefer that proper capitalisation be used in the book that they were then working on, but the reputation had stuck by then and cummings will forever be ee.
With approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings to his name Edward Estlin Cummings was a prolific and popular writer throughout his lifetime. Born on October 14, 1894 he is remembered as an eminent voice of 20th-century English literature and here we commemorate his work with 10 Capital Quotes from ee cummings.
“it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are”
“unbeing dead isn’t being alive”
“for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always our self we find in the sea”
“trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward”
“i’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance”
“the three saddest things are the ill wanting to be well, the poor wanting to be rich, and the constant traveller saying ‘anywhere but here’”
“love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star”
“life’s not a paragraph
and death i think is no parenthesis”
“she may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn’t standing still”
ee cummings died on 3rd September 1962 after suffering a catastrophic stroke, he was buried at the Forest Hills Cemetery and Crematory in Boston and his memorial stone is properly capitalised.
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