-
this poem is about how throughout life a
person changes, but in the end they are still
essentially the same you can change
(rearrange) yourself to become
something else, but after everything
you will still remain the same person. A way
that you can read it is:
Grasshopper:
who
as we look
upnowgathering
into a grasshopper:
the
grasshopper leaves!
arriving to become rearrangingly;
Grasshopper
.
On
Norman Friedman (1960)
Take the famous grasshopper poem, for
example--
[Here he quotes the poem]
The
appearance
of
the
poem
on
the
page
does
not
resemble,
by
any
stretch
of the imagination,
a grasshopper leaping. The important fact to grasp
is
that
the
spatial
arrangement
is
not
imitative
in
itself,
as
is
the
case
in representational painting or drawing
in which the lines and colors
actually
resemble
some
object;
it
is
rather
that
the
spacing
is
governed
by the disruption
and blending of syllables and the pause and
emphasis
of meaning which produce a
figurative equivalent for the subject of the
poem, as the reader reads in time. As
the reader gropes and fumbles his
way
along this jumble of syllables and letters, his
mind is gradually
building up the
connections which normally obtain among
them--
who,
as
we
look,
now
upgathering
into
himself,
leaps,
arriving to become, rearrangingly, a
grasshopper.
reviewed
the
entire
poem
once
or
twice,
he
recreates
in
his
mind
the
very
effect of a grasshopper leaping, which
Cummings is describing as
upgathering,
leaping, disintegrating, and rearranging. This
effect is
partially produced by the
fact that the syllables of
rearranged
acrostically four times (including the normal
spelling);
partially by the
distribution of parentheses, punctuation marks,
and
capitals;
and
partially
by
the
joining,
splitting,
and
spacing
of
words.
The over-all intent,
then, is not primarily visual at all, but rather
figurative
and
aesthetic:
Cummings
is
regulating,
with
a
view
to
increased
precision
and
vividness
of
effect,
the
manner
in
which
the
reader
reads.
The object is, for example, to loosen
up the effect of a metrical line,
to
suggest the thing or
idea
spoken of,
to alter and
reinforce meanings,
or to
amplify and
retard. His is
a
style of constant
emphasis:
since he
relishes
each phrase, word, and letter of a poem, he wants
the reader to
relish
them
too,
and
many
of
his
devices
are
aimed
simply
at
slowing
down
the reader's intake of the poem.
from Norman Friedman.
e. e.
cummings: the art of his poetry
.
Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Press, 1960.
123 and 124.
Sam Hynes (1951)
The whole poem is an attempt to deal
with words visually, and to create
art
as a single experience, having spatial, not
temporal extension: to
force
poetry
toward
a
closer
kinship
with
painting
and
the
plastic
arts,
and
away
from
its
kinship
with
music. It
is
a
picture
of
an
action
rather
than a description of it; word-clusters
representing each psrt of the
action
(take-off, leap, landing) are to be received
simultaneously, not
as
words
occurring
one
at
a
time. In
the
penultimate
line,
for
example,
the
arranging
and
the
becoming
are
simultaneous
processes.
One
word
is
therefore
as
nearly
superimposed
upon
the
other
as
is
physically
possible.
from Sam Hynes,
Explicator
10 (Nov.
1951): Item 9.
Stephen Cushman
The motions of a grasshopper are suggested by
various permutations of
the letters of
Typographic
jumbling,
dispersion,
rearrangement,
and,
finally,
stability
enact
the
transformation
of
the
motionless
grasshopper
into
a
leaping
blur
of
energy,
which
suddenly
comes
to
rest.
The
poem
also
dramatizes
the
act
of
looking
at
the
grasshopper
and
not
realizing
what
it
is
(the
grasshopper
may
be
camouflaged
in
the
grass
as
the
word
is
camouflaged
in the first line) until it leaps into
the air and into attention and
recognition.