Wednesday, November 5, 2008

"pity this busy monster,manunkind" by e.e. cummings

I'm not really a fan of poetry. Being the writer that I am and plan to be, it is the one form of literature that I was unable to convince myself to like...until now.
Since I'm in a college literature class, I have to read a shitload of poems. From modern-day classics to centuries-old scribbles; we cover them all. Recently, I had to read the following poem:

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go


This poem is one of the best written things I've ever read. e.e. cummings is a genius. I suggest you look him up on Wikipedia.
Oh, and this poem was written in 1944. Yeah.

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