Analysis of since feeling is first

Edward Estlin Cummings 1894 (Cambridge, Massachusetts) – 1962 (Madison, New Hampshire)



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 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


Scheme XXXX XX XXXXXX XXX X
Poetic Form
Metre 11011 1110010 10111 1101011 101101 111001 1101 0101101 110 1011111011 0110111111 111011 1111101 1101011 111010 0111110100
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 428
Words 85
Sentences 2
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 2, 6, 3, 1
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 70
Words per stanza (avg) 17
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Submitted by ddunne21 on May 31, 2016

Modified on April 05, 2023

26 sec read
431

Edward Estlin Cummings

Edward Estlin Cummings, known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e e cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays, and several essays. He is often regarded as one of the most important American poets of the 20th century. Cummings is associated with modernist free-form poetry. Much of his work has idiosyncratic syntax and uses lower case spellings for poetic expression. more…

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