I'm teaching a variety of modernist poems this week in my American Lit. class, and I know students cringe whenever they hear names like Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and especially e. e. cummings. They know they are in for wacky punctuation, seemingly random constructions, and obscure and opaque meanings. But, once again, the clever video essayists over at Nerdwriter can help us out. Their latest piece is on cummings's strange-looking poems and can hopefully allow, if not a greater appreciation, at least a clearer understanding of some of the intricacies of poetry in the modernist period.
Take a look...
Take a look...