Juliette Rowsell: E.E Cummings
A writer has the power to transport you to a different time, place and universe. A good writer, however, goes beyond this. A good writer has the power to chime the harmonies inside of you that you never knew existed until the power of their words fill every nook and cranny within you. EE Cummings, the 20th century modernist poet, does this for me in a way no other writer ever has. Up until I discovered cummings (who chooses not to capitalise his name to reflect the modernist, unconventional style of his poetry), I’d failed to see what was so impressive about poetry. ‘But it’s just a load of nonsense that doesn’t make sense, right?’ I often queried. But after being recommended some of his poetry by my English teacher, I was totally mesmerized by the way a mere 14 lines of writing could have me so utterly transfixed. Poems such as ‘since feeling is first’, ‘may me heart always be open to little’ and ‘l)a’ made me realise the importance of each and every single word not only in poetry, but in prose and essay writing too. Language is a powerful tool and Cummings highlights the extent of such power. Cummings rips to shreds the rules of grammar in his poetry thus challenging conventional ideas towards literature. It is Cummings’ boldness to reject such traditional practices that is particularly inspiring, but ultimately it is ability to create such simple and beautiful art that inspires me within my own writing each and every time I pick up a pen.