AnOther E.E. Cummings - Tapa dura

Here is an eye-opening selection of Cummings's most avant-garde poetry and prose. Cummings was a pioneer in sound and concrete poetry. He worked with the traditional form of the sonnet until he made it all his own through linguistic and typographic inventions that have never been properly recognized. His prose is no less experimental; he wrote memoirs, essays, and fiction that are constantly provocative and often radically experimental.

E. E. Cummings (1894-1962) was among the most influential, widely read, and revered modernist poets. He was also a playwright, a painter, and a writer of prose. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he studied at Harvard University and, during World War I, served with an ambulance corps in France. He spent three months in a French detention camp and subsequently wrote The Enormous Room, a highly acclaimed criticism of World War I. After the war, Cummings returned to the States and published his first collection of poetry, Tulips & Chimneys, which was characterized by his innovative style: pushing the boundaries of language and form while discussing love, nature, and war with sensuousness and glee. He spent the rest of his life painting, writing poetry, and enjoying widespread popularity and success.