capital birthday wishes for e.e.cummings

the great poet e.e.cummings was born on this day way back in 1894, which is pretty amazing to consider when you think how modern his style still seems. i've always admired his playfulness with form and language. i've certainly taken inspiration from the ambiguity of his sentence structures, imbuing lines with multiple and sometimes tricky meanings.

(if you haven't guessed: i'm playing with punctuation and avoiding capitalization as a token homage to this homme extraordinaire; trivia: full name being edward estlin.)

below is a poem i found of his that will give you a good taste of what his unique technique is like. i'm short of time today, so i'll let cummings own words stand as the most fitting tribute to his talent and intelligence; finding beauty in the simplest of feelings, moments and gestures.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
by e.e. cummings

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 will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,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 color 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