Since Feeling is First by E.E. Cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
– the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
Hello and welcome to Words that Burn, the podcast taking a closer look at Poetry. This episode's poem is Since feeling is First by EE. Cummings. Making this episode the first instance of a repeat poet on the podcast, as Cummings was the subject of the very first episode.
It’s linked below in the description.
EE. Cummings is a fascinating poet in terms of style, form, experimentation and emotion. His work encompasses all of these things, and more.
He was a noted experimenter when it came to all the functions above, so much so that his work is often remembered for its experimentation rather than any inherent poetic quality. to quote one critic.
He was often noted for his experimentation when it came to all the functions that I listed so much. So that often his work is more remembered for his experimentation than any real inherent, poetic quality to quote one critic.
I think when we condemn his poetry to the realm of pure experimentation, We do the poet, a great injustice. His love of experimentation led to the creation of some incredibly complex and unorthodox poems. This generated a great deal of complexity. And because of this, his work at first glance can be quite intimidating for new readers.
It has been said that his work is nothing original in terms of themebut it is the skill with which he brings those tried and tested themes to bear that sets him apart. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his love poetry; one of the finest examples of which we’re looking at today.
There are five distinct sections to this one. His poems were often written to pose a question or an argument, either for himself or the reader to ponder. When he moves from one idea to the next there is often a line break or stanza shift.
If we take a look at the first section here, this is the premise of his argument;
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
E.E Cummings attitudes towards the nature of love are laid bare here. That feeling is first, simply means that , for him, emotion comes before all else.
This priority was always at the core of his work. He wrote and spoke often of how to be a poet was to feel. Here is the man himself explaining exactly that to a group of students in 1955:
To explore that theme here he creates a strong opposing pair to test his theory. There is the pure force of emotion, tied to nature later in the poem, one of Cummings favourite metaphors. On the other side of this pair is reason, which here takes the form of syntax and grammar.
In this first stanza Cummings claims that those concerned with grammar and the tiny details of things, He who pays any attention to the syntax of things are unworthy or incapable of the depths of true passion.
For anyone familiar with Cummings these are quite self congratulatory lines. Cummings has posed himself as the opposite of these calculated rational men who will never wholly kiss the woman of the poem. It seems a natural fit for Cummings to be a poet in opposition to grammar as much of his poetry centred around pushing the boundaries of experimentation and raging against any definition of what a poem is. He was famed for a complete abandon when it came to the rules of English and a genuine love of changing the poetic form in bold typographic experiments. Forcing readers to engage with his work or become lost in it.
It think academic Roi Tartakovsky put it best when he said:
The operative word here is active, action, process, and
movement being prized concepts in the Cummings metaphysics.
That desire for readers to engage was one of the driving reasons that Cummings decided to focus on feeling and to step away from the often rigid rules of his chosen field. He would, in a sense, hook his reader with an immensity of feeling and compel them to re-read his work to gain better understanding.
The you of the line will never wholly kiss you; indicates that the poem is directed at someone, in a kind bizarre romantic Socratic dialogue. It would be safe to assume given the ubiquity of their presence in Cummings poetry that it’s a woman. His poems frequently present women in an idealised light and this poem is no exception, as later lines of the poem will attest.
The next stanza is a simple couplet, which continues the notion of the first and expands on it slightly:
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
More than just a mere abandonment of rules, love is utter ignorance for them. Inviting foolishness over sense.
As previously mentioned Spring and flowering are two repeated themes for Cummings in his poetry (Webster). The notion of a kind of classical paganism, one in which Spring was the great rejuvenator really took hold with him in his formative years at Harvard. There is something eternally hopeful and romantic about the season for him. He invokes it here to show just how much of a release love can be.
The perspective in the third stanza shifts from descriptions of the external world to the poet's own internal view of things. He is no longer making an argument but accepting it a fact; to be in love is to be a fool. Stanza number 3 makes it clear that he embraces this loss of logic wholeheartedly:
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
– the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
Cummings often speaks of his body as though it were a separate entity or object from his mind. (Yablon, 6). Here he finds it approves of this fresh spring and foolishness. His body and blood rising to meet the occasion. He is in some way built for this kind of devil may care romance. From here it is clear that Cumming turns wholly to romantic language. The words and phrases of this stanza are far more classical than modernist.
He seems to be saying that there are those that might fear foolishness, a terrible thing, and too great a price to pay for love but for himself the opposite is true; kisses are a better fate than wisdom. for what use is wisdom with no hint of passion?
The true power of emotion is laid bare in Cumming’s plea: Lady I swear by all the flowers he takes an oath on his favourite symbol to ensure the object of his desire that love is what he truly seeks. He makes this oath as though she is upset he has perhaps sacrificed too much by turning his back on intellect. He is quick to reassure her. The best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelid’s flutter. Not only is love preferable to reason but in fact towers over it. This is peak romantic Idealisation, academic Alys Rho Yablon refers to it as ‘’the Petrarchan tendency for the speaker to devalue himself in comparison to his Lady.’’ ( Yablon, 6) . It is not the first or last time Cummings will do this in his poetry. This veneration is all done to ensure the woman's comfort and make her sure of his love. The fourth stanza emphasises this even further:
we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
There could be nothing wrong in love for two people who seem literally designed for each other. In inviting her to then laugh leaning back in my arms he encourages her to give up the crutch of reason and join him in foolishness. A testament to one another.
The final line of the fourth stanza shifts quickly in one fluid thought to the fifth:
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
These final two lines are a masterclass in how Cummings manipulates form and syntax to pack a punch in his work. Simultaneously, it is a very wry way for Cummings to contradict the central message of his own poem.
In choosing to lean back in his arms, both the lover and Cummings himself choose a kind of present moment bliss. The metalanguage, grammatical key terms, paragraph and parenthesis are very important to that understanding. One source defines the paragraph as; used to help your reader follow the logic of your argument In following this definition we understand that Cummings is reinforcing his original argument: The true enjoyment of life cannot be found within rigid rules and logic. Life is not for logic, it cannot be seen as a paragraph.
The final line, And death I think is no parenthesis through its own unique spacing and by merit of being the only single line in the poem, is given its own sense of gravity. It’s worth noting as Critic Rai Tartakovsky once did, that:
among the various punctuation marks none has been more explored, used, and abused by Cummings than parentheses. The overwhelmingly vast majority of Cummings’s hundreds of poems include parentheses in any number of forms. Cummings is the unparalleled poet of parentheses, and the parentheses are for Cummings an extraordinarily prized poetic device, granting us a unique test case of punctuational appropriation.
So it is definitely not casually mentioned here. Traditionally the function of the parentheses seem to say ‘here it is if you wish it; it’s only an aside’ . So then is the information contained within parentheses truly important? In claiming that death is not parentheses I believe that Cummings is telling us that it’s a serious matter indeed. I’ve always held that Cummings holds these final words as an urgency to both his lover and his reader, on a line all it’s own that death and life cannot be separated to participate in one, life and love, is to be aware of the other. There is an end to all things and if we were to spend our lives entangled in logic and meaning it would be a waste indeed.
I chose this poem as a massive EE. Cummings fan but also to showcase how poetry we often write off as ‘’overly sentimental’’ or clichéd can often harbour untold depths of feeling within their stanzas. This poem is a grand appeal for romance that ends with a little existential bent towards ensuring people pursue what is valuable to them or at least to Cummings.
The evocation of genuine emotion from a reader was a lifelong pursuit for Cummings, one that he believed was essential within his time. Academic Emily Essert put it best when she wrote:
That Cummings overstates the case for feeling in this poem (and others) is a kind of compensation for a culture in which, as he sees it, an over-emphasis on
knowledge (among other things) that has left people incapable of genuine
emotional responses. Cummings' poems are intended to speak to the reader
at a more visceral, sub-rational level upon first reading, eliciting a strong
emotional response. But this response occurs primarily upon a first reading;
his poems then beg to be re-read in order to be understood, and it is mostly
upon rereading that Cummings challenges the reader's intellect.
Cummings wanted contemplation and clarity to come from poetry and to my mind there are few that achieve it quite like this one.
Thank you very much for listening. There’s been a long hiatus for this podcast, but I’m happy to say that I’ll be committing to a new episode every two weeks from now on. This week's episode was produced by me, Benjamin Collopy. The music in this week’s episode was composed by Scott Buckley and used under creative commons licence. A link to his work and all socials relating to the podcast are down below in the description.
If you enjoyed this podcast or know someone who would, please consider leaving me a review wherever you listen or sharing it directly with a friend.
Join me in two weeks, where I’ll be taking a look at the work of Rachel Long.
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