Exploring the Universal

A common first response to the works of E.E. Cummings is "I don't get it." Indeed, there does not seem to be much to get. "Unorthodox" is a polite word for it; many of his poems almost look like the result of a fist hitting a typewriter. They are, at the very least, difficult to understand (if indeed a poem is something to be dissected and probed for a meaning). Cummings' famous and much-anthologized poem "l)a" is a good example of this. At first glance, it looks like a short string of meaningless letters. Further examination reveals the words "a leaf falls" embedded in another word, the heart of the poem - "loneliness." It is easy to write it off as another cheap and talentless attempt to be unique, and there is admittedly nothing inherently special about the words. It is, however, effective in its unorthodoxy, tapping into the universal understanding of loneliness rather than trying to explain it. In other words, he had mastered what creative writing students everywhere still struggle to grasp - the concept of showing instead of telling.

Part of Cummings' power lies in his ability to see the familiar in unfamiliar ways. Maya Angelou's poem "The Traveler," which reads, "Manless and friendless / No cave my home / This is my torture / My long nights, lone," is a typical modern expression of loneliness - a long line of cliches. "L(a" had the potential to be another such cliche - after all, the word "loneliness" is so abused that it has been stripped of meaning, and there is little or nothing memorable about a leaf falling. But by breaking the words into fragments that the mind cannot interpret without careful analysis, he slows the reader and makes them consider the word, giving it new life. Does the leaf symbolize loneliness? Does it remind him of loneliness? Could the leaf itself be the lonely one? Questions like these - and, more importantly, their subjective answers - give the poem its power.

The tasteful use of minimalism, which can be found in all forms of art, also works in Cummings' favor. Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, for example, adopted the motto "Less is more" to describe his aesthetic tactics of flattening and emphasizing the building's frame, eliminating interior walls and adopting an open plan, and reducing the structure to a strong, transparent, elegant skin. Minimalist artists such as Ernest Hemingway, Tobias Wolff, and Alicia Erian carried this philosophy into the literary arena. By avoiding the trap of wordiness that so many poets fall into - indeed, by going to the opposite end of the spectrum - Cummings makes minimalism work. The proof of his success is that he says more in twenty letters than many poets say in several pages, and that he says it more effectively.

Furthermore, "l(a" paints a startlingly vivid mental picture for a poem that is only twenty letters long. It is note-worthy that this is achieved not only through the words themselves, but also through their arrangement. They "fall," literally reflect the falling of the leaf mentioned in the poem itself.


    l(a



    le
    af
    fa



    ll



    s)
    one
    l



    iness
Any number of observations can be drawn from the letter placement. The fact that "one" is on a line by itself further reinforces the theme of singularity. The sing-song rhythm of the words suggests the swaying of the falling leaf, while the final line - wider than the others - could be the leaf after it has settled onto the ground.

It can be helpful to think of it as a painting. It does not have a deep-set subliminal message; rather, the words are intended to paint a picture, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions. Like much modern art, it can seem random at first glance, but in reality is carefully designed to evoke emotion. Jackson Pollock, the famous abstract expressionist painter of the early 1900s, once denied claims that his paintings were the results of accidental paint spills, saying that he usually had an idea of what he wanted the painting to become.1 In the same way, though E.E. Cummings' irreverent use of punctuation and flagrant disregard for the nuances of English make his work appear haphazard and meaningless at first glance, closer scrutiny often reveals that the deceptively simple poem is actually a deliberate and intricate work of art.

By effectively blending minimalism with vivid imagery, "l(a" creates a very real picture rich with unconscious symbolism. Even those not looking for it can instinctively sense that the desolate feeling of the poem goes beyond the obvious use of the word "loneliness." For example, the surroundings must be very still for the movement of a single leaf to be enough to capture and focus the attention. This, in and of itself, is enough to suggest complete solitude - the quiet rustling of a leaf literally breaking the loneliness before settling and returning to the way it was. Falling leaves also symbolize death, endings, and cold, as autumn is the most common time for leaves to die off. Perhaps this leaf was the last to fall and clung to the tree as long as possible before finally surrendering to the snow. Whatever the reader feels or sees is familiar to them; everyone has seen a leaf fall, and everyone has felt lonely. The feeling of familiarity gives this poem much of its appeal.

Perhaps what makes "l(a" shine most, however, is that Cummings explains nothing. He is no Aesop, penciling in a moral at the end in case a slower reader has missed the obvious meaning. He leaves it open to interpretation, available to be molded as the reader sees fit and to mean anything he needs it to mean. Memorable and well-written fiction should tell a story, create a picture, and give life to imagination - not veil a sermon, manipulating characters like puppets to make a point or demonstrate a moral. Cummings understood this, and as in his other pieces, he does not out and say what he means; instead, he orders letters and words to convey the feeling behind the thought. It is effective because it evokes past feelings of loneliness instead of getting wordy in an attempt to explain what loneliness feels like.

"L(a" works because it accurately reflects something that every human understands - loneliness - and does so without becoming an ostentatious epic thick with self-expression. It works because it captures a small moment, one so universal that further explanation is not needed to awaken those feelings. It works because it unorthodoxly shows loneliness instead of explaining it, appealing to everyone's innate sense of what it means to be human.