i six nonlectures

Once upon a time many many moons ago a friend of a friend of a sometimes friend had an unlabelled casette tape of e.e. cummings reading his poetry and talking to a roomful of students. This tape had been duplicated numerous times, passed 'round campus like a guilty secret, and had a voice that was beautifully monotonous, fresh and clear like muddy rain, and exuberantly moribund.

One of my favourite things I ever heard. Since this was decades ago, I never would have realized that I had memorized all the things on that cassette, but I must have, because they were brought back in this book.

i six nonlectures. e.e. cummings. (c) 1953 by the author, (c) renewed 1981 E.E. Cummings Trust. Harvard U Press, Cambridge Mass.

First let me start by saying that if anybody had as good a childhood as he describes then we would all be living in paradise. I mean, the man described a childhood that had no, and I repeat, NO stress. Perfect parents, who taught and encouraged, wealthy yet intelligent friends, (he even claims to have been baptized by a family friend, "Stubby" Child - the selfsame Child who was the pre-eminent man who collected and organized and categorized the English and Scottish ballads - one of the first books I ever nicked from a library, so in love I was with the pages that I must needs have it - and I checked and it quite probably was true, because e.e. was born in 1894 and Child died in 1896 . . . so 'tis possible).

OK, so we already have the young e.e. growing up in a wonderful literary culture with absolutely no - I repeat - NO - problems. Maybe this is why he was able to write so much about love, so unabashedly, and why he could take apart the English language and put it together again, like a child with an unlimited supply of legos. I mean, other authors not only want to play with language, but they also need to work out their personal demons. (Er . . . do I hear "Dickens" anyone!?) My theory after reading this nonlecture is this: since e.e. had no problems, he could concentrate solely on pure art, and in addition to that, could send a positive message through the purity of this art.

Or maybe I'm full of crap. Maybe he was - maybe the whole thing was for show - in a way, you rather get the sense that this childhood was too good, too perfect, as though maybe he was re-creating a perfect childhood. Who knows? Certainly not me, because I've never really liked his poetry that much.

Which was all the more interesting reason why I loved that underground cassette: because he wasn't reading poetry, he was giving aphorisms on the nature of life, love, art - cumming's entire theory is that you should fully devote yourself to art - just give yourself to it, and keep fighting and struggling and rending of teethand gnashingofhair until you finally get something, some product that you might be satisfied with.

Again, these "nonlectures" are, in short, incredible. I'm serious: go out and steal that book (but not from my library, thankyouverymuch!) and read it, take it to heart, enjoy it. If this book does not make you want to touch pen to paper or finger to keyboard then you are truly dead from the neck up.

For anybody who ever wanted to write/was-is a writer/or who simply loves the written word: this book is a must for your personal (and by personal, I mean your INTERNAL) library.

VG