A Last Thought

"Forward to an Exhibit II" by e.e. cummings

from A Miscellany Revised, published in 1965

source: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/cummings/commentary.htm

In this piece, Cummings stages an imaginary interview where he connects his poetry to his painting explicitly. While some may claim that the two mediums work against one another, Cummings states plainly that "they love each other dearly." The two mediums in fact work together to elucidate Cummings' message. Due to his strange form, lack of punctuation, and often opaque ideas, his poetry is hard to understand, but Cummings claims that his "painting [too] is nonrepresentational." One does not explain the other; both are required for a full understanding. The colors in his paintings explain the emotions in his poems, while the precise wording explains complicated scenes of his paintings. The final line of this piece summarizes this idea perfectly. When he is asked where he will want to live after the war is over, he responds "Where a painter is a poet." In Cummings' mind, the two professions, painter and poet, are one in the same. He must use both talents so that his art reaches its maximum depth.