Here's one of my favorite ee cummings poems. He uses his trademark all-lower-case style to good effect, making the capitalized characters pop with contrast: Olaf/I, God and Christ.
He compresses the poem like an over-wound spring, eliminating the spaces after some punctuation, bunching some especially potent words together, crowding the narrative forward like the non-coms bum rush Olaf to his doom, creating a rabid, claustrophobic atmosphere.
Like spidey knows, the language does not own the writer; the writer owns the language.
quote:
i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or
his wellbelovd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"
straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)
but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"
our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died
Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too
preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.
--ee cummings
Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio
Real things always push back.
-William James
™ Version 4.2
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