Tradition and Innovation in E.E. Cummings Picasso

Tradition and Innovation in E.E. Cummingsʹ ʺPicassoʺ Picasso you give us things which bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind you make us shrill presents always shut in the sumptuous screech of simplicity (out of the black unbunged Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes or between squeals of Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness solid screams whisper.) Lumberman of the Distinct your brain’s axe only chops hugest inherent Trees of Ego,from whose living and biggest bodies lopped of every prettiness you hew form truly ‐‐E.E. Cummings Because of its subject, E.E. Cummings' early 1924 poem "Picasso" (CP 95) has attracted quite a bit of critical attention. But all critical comment on the poem has been external and prosaic, contextual and literal. The quality of the poem, as a poem, has been avoided entirely. In their response to the poem, a number of critics (Cohen 45‐46, 122, 140‐41, 179‐80, Kidder 38‐39, Marks 95‐96, Kennedy Dreams 180‐82, Kennedy Revisited 41‐ 43) have commented on Cummings' admiration for Picasso, Picasso's influence on Cummings' own Cubist paintings, and the poem's woodworker metaphor, startling juxtapositioning of images, strong representation of action, and pervasive description of dissonant sound. But almost all of these comments would apply just as well to a paraphrase of the poem, such as this: Picasso, you really know how to use form. In your paintings, you are like a visual woodworker. Your technique is like a saw or lathe. You create something out of nothing. You bring to life dissonant wholes by juxtaposing different, but complementary, perspectives. Your paintings screech and squeal. The result is tangible, simple, real, and psychological, simultaneously, an existential scream, not just artistic fussiness. None of the substantial criticism on the poem mentions its meter, its visual form, its voicing/prosody, its syntax, its structure and development, or (in any detail), its actual sound (rather than just its description of sound). Discussions of the poem's dissonant images have also been prosaic, poetically naïve. Having no explicit, workable poetics to work with, critics have been unable to say what constitutes imagistic dissonance in poetry. The irony of this situation is high. "Picasso" is about Cummings' deep admiration of a famous contemporary artist's use of form. But critical response to the poem has avoided commenting on Cummings' own use of form, as if poems were not art, and therefore, not formal, too. In this essay I will overcome this critical irony and respond to "Picasso" as it is intended, that is, as a creative use of linguistic form‐ ‐rhythmic, linguistic, rhetorical, symbolic. The result is both substantial and surprising. 1 For instance, in spite of its visual layout, as it turns out, metrically and vocally, "Picasso" is a pretty traditional sonnet, with fourteen metrical lines, a clear octave composed of quatrains, and a sestet organized into tercets, albeit with variable line lengths and no end rhyme. Metrical Lines and Stanzas Picasso you give us things which bulge: grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind you make us shrill presents always shut in the sumptuous screech of simplicity (out of the black unbunged Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes, or between squeals of Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness solid screams whisper.) Lumberman of the Distinct your brainʹs axe only chops hugest inherent Trees of Ego, from whose living and biggest bodies lopped of every prettiness you hew form truly "Picasso" is also a normal, if not entirely traditional, sonnet in its prosody/voicing, rhetoric, and argument/development. The poem has fifteen intonational units, just one more than the fourteen metrical lines, distributed normally, with nine intonational units in the octave and six in the sestet. The argument in the poem is then developed normally/traditionally, too. The poem divides in two between octave and sestet by the paired vocatives (Picasso, Lumberman of the Distinct). Then each metrical part of the poem (2 or 3 lines) is developed by parallel examples, focusing on paired, present tense verbs (give, make, gushes, whisper, chops, hews), sometimes using anticipatory movement and, other times, extensional, with a variety of syntaxes controlling this movement (apposition, conjunction, subject‐predicate structure, relative clauses, etc.). High Levels of Grouping and Prolongation 4 \ Picasso | / \ you give…bulge: |w / \ grunting…thick mind |s-=e / \ you make us…always |w /| \ shut…simplicity |s-xe / \ (out of…Something |w-a / \ gushes…planes, |s-xr / \ or…tightness |w-a / \ solid screams whisper.) |s-xr / \ Lumberman of the Distinct | / \ your brain's axe… chops |w-a / \ hugest…Trees of Ego, |s-xr / \ from whose living…bodies |w / \ lopped of…prettiness |s-xe / \ you hew form truly | / 4 5 \ | / \ | |w | | / \ | | |s-+e | / \ | |w | | / \ | |s-+e | | / \ | / \ | | | | / \ | | |w-a | / \ |s-xr / 5 6 \ | / \ | | | |w | | | | | | / \ | | | | |s-+e | | | | | / \ | / \ | |w | / \ | | | |s-xe | | | | / 6 7 \ 8 \ |w-a | / | \ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |s-xr | | | | |w-a | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | / / \ \ |w-a | / | \ | | | | | | | | | | |s+r |s-xr | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | / / 7 8 9 \ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | / 9 What is not at all traditional about "Picasso," though, is its (1) variable metrical line lengths, (2) pervasive syncopation, (3) visual layout, and (4) when seen from a temporal/psychological perspective, dense, but conflicted, sonic, synactic, and semantic/symbolic patterning. "Picasso" is entirely metrical. So it is not really conventional free verse at all. On the other hand, its 14 metrical lines are widely, but meticulously, varied in length, fluctuating unpredictably between 4‐6 tactical beats and 5‐13 syllables, as we might find in a poet such as Whitman. This variable meter is also densely syncopated. 8 of the 14 metrical lines begin (in a standard way) with syncopated tactical beats (shut in, out of, gushes, squeals of, Lumberman, hugest, living, lopped of), but more unusually, three metrical lines end with a syncopated tactical beat (always, from whose, prettiness), and under the influence of these syncopated metrical beginnings and endings, a couple of lines are entirely syncopated, becoming quasi‐ polymetrical (squeals of / Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness; lopped / of every / prettiness). Against a rising norm, the many trochaic and dactylic words in the poem also encourage this dense syncopation. Meter and Low Levels of Grouping and Prolongation Metrical Line 1 _______ _____________________________ / \/ \ w-a w-a s-xr ______ __________ _____ ___________ / \/ \/ \/ \ ______ __________ _____ ___________ / \/ \/ \/ \ w s w w s w w s v / v v / \ / \ / Picasso you give us things which bulge: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress section stanza part lobe tactus pulse Line 2 _____________________________________________ / \ intonational unit w w-xe s-xe ______________ _________ ___________________ / \/ \/ \ phonological phrase w-a s-xr w-a s-xr w-a w-a s-xr _______ ____ _____ __ ________ ___ _____ / \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \ clitic phrase s w w s / v / / / \ / / / stress grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind . line . . part . . . . . tactus . . . . . . . . . pulse Line 3 __________________________________ / \ w-a s-xr w-xe ___________ ____________ ______ / \/ \/ \ w-a s-xr ___________ ____ ______ ______ / \/ \/ \/ \ w s w s w s w \ / \ / / v / \ you make us shrill presents always . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress part line lobe tactus pulse Line 4 ____________________________________________ / \ w-a w-a s-xr ___ ______________________ _______________ / \/ \/ \ w-a s-xr ___ _______________ _____ _______________ / \/ \/ \/ \ w w s w w w w s w w / \ v / v v / \ \ / v v Shut in the sumptuous screech of simplicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress line lobe tactus pulse Line 5 ___________________________________ / \ ____________________________________ / \ w-a w-a w-a s-xr _______ ______ ________ _________ / \/ \/ \/ \ s w w s w s s w / \ v / \ / / \ (out of the black unbunged Something . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress stanza part line lobe tactus pulse Line 6 _______________________________ _________>> / \/ w-a w-a s-xr _____ _______ _______________ __________>> / \/ \/ \/ w-a s-xr _____ ______ _______ _______ _________ / \/ \/ \/ \/ \ s w s w w s w s w w s / v / v v / \ / \ v / gushes vaguely a squeak of planes or between . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress line lobe tactus pulse Line 7 __________________________________________________________ / \ inton. u. w-a w-a s-xr _________________ ______ _______________________________ / \/ \/ \ phon.p. w-a s-xr w-a w-a s-xr ____ ___________ ______ ___________ _______ _________ / \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \ clitic p. s w s w w s w w s w s w / \ / v / \ / \ v / v / v stress squeals of Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness . part . line . . lobe . . . . . . tactus . . . . . . . . . . . . . pulse Line 8 __________________________ / \ w-a s-xr _______________ _________ / \/ \ w-a s-xr _____ _______ _________ / \/ \/ \ s w s w / v / / v solid screams whisper.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress line lobe tactus pulse Line 9 _________________________ / \ _________________________ / \ w-a s-xr ________ _______________ / \/ \ s w w w w w s / v \ \ v \ / Lumberman of the Distinct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress . . stanza part line lobe tactus pulse Line 10 ___________________________ / \ w-a w-a s-xr _______________ ____ ___ / \/ \/ \ w-a s-xr _________ ___ _____ ___ / \/ \/ \/ \ w s s w \ / / / v / your brain's axe only chops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress line part tactus pulse Line 11 ____________________________ _______>> / \/ ____________________________ _______>> / \/ w-a w-a w-xr s-xr w-a _____ _______ ____ ______ _______>> / \/ \/ \/ \/ s w w s w w s w w w / v \ / v / \ / \ \ \ hugest inherent Trees of Ego, from whose intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . line lobe tactus pulse . . Line 12 <<______________________ \ <<______________________ \ w-a s-xr <<__ ___________ ______ \/ \/ \ s w w s w s w / v \ / v / v living and biggest bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress part line lobe tactus pulse Line 13 ________________________ / \ w-a s-xr _____ _________________ / \/ \ w-a s-xr _____ ________ ______ / \/ \/ \ w s w w s w w / \ / v v / v v lopped of every prettiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress . line lobe tactus pulse Line 14 __________________ / \ w-a w-a w-xr s-xe __ ___ ___ ____ / \/ \/ \/ \ __ ___ ___ ____ / \/ \/ \/ \ s w / / / / v you hew form truly intonational unit phonological phrase clitic phrase stress . . . . . . . . . . . . line lobe tactus pulse . . Beats per line: 45 / 45 // 45 64 // 445 444 Syllables per line: 9 9 / 8 12 // 8 10 / 13 5 // 7 6 11 / 7 8 5 2 lines with 5 syllables 1 line with 6 syllables 2 lines with 7 syllables 3 lines with 8 syllables 2 lines with 9 syllables 1 line with 10 syllables 1 line with 11 syllables 1 line with 12 syllables 1 line with 13 syllables Syncopation: presents, always, shut in, out of, Something, gushes, vaguely,squeals of, Nothing, grabbed with, circular, shrieking tightness, Lumberman, Of the, hugest, living, lopped of Trochaic and dactylic words: grunting, presents, always, sumptuous, Something, gushes, vaguely, circular, shrieking, tightness, whisper, Lumberman, only, hugest, living, biggest, prettiness, truly Syncopation at the beginnings of lines: shut in, out of, gushes, squeals of, Lumberman, hugest, living, lopped of Syncopation at line ends: always, from whose, prettiness Lines that are entirely syncopated: Squeals of Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness . . . . . . tactus Lopped of every prettiness . . . . tactus Then, by arranging the poem visually into six visual quatrains (with the final line broken off and isolated), and for contrast, still leaving some visual lines intact as metrical lines (solid screams whisper.), Lumberman of the Distinct, you hew form truly). Cummings has his visual lines cut across this variable and syncopated meter in 16 places, like standard short‐line free verse, as we might find in a poet such as William Carlos Williams, visually isolating words (Picasso, which, simplicity, or, prettiness), highlighting adverbs and function words by placing them on the peripheries of visual lines (you, which, you, always, of, out, the, Something, or, between, of, your, from, whose, of, every), and even creating four visual lines composed entirely of function words (which, out of the, or, of every). Even so, several lines remain that read coherently, but often differently, from the flow of the syntax, which adds further layers of multidimensionality and/or dissonance: Picasso you give us things you make us shrill Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes solid screams whisper.) Lumberman of the Distinct you hew form truly Visually Isolated words and function words on visual line peripheries: Picasso you give us things which bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind you make us shrill presents always shut in the sumptuous screech of simplicity (out of the black unbunged Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes or between squeals of Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness solid screams whisper.) Lumberman of the Distinct your brain’s axe only chops hugest inherent Trees of Ego,from whose living and biggest bodies lopped of every prettiness you hew form truly Number of Visual Breaks in Metrical Lines : 3011 // 2210 // 012120 However, the major creative gestures in ʺPicassoʺ (and much of Cummingsʹ other poetry) is the rich, but balanced, elaboration of groups of related/conflicting sounds, syntaxes, and meanings, as these relations/conflicts come from forms associated with our different sensibilities‐‐body, soul, spirit, mind (or in temporal terms, cyclical, centroidal, linear, relative). Cyclical Semantics/symbolism: things, bulge, thick, grunting, always, simplicity, solid, hugest, inherent, tightness, biggest, bodies, lopped, truly Syntax: generic nouns: things, lungs, mind, presents, screech, simplicity, squeals, Nothing, tightness, screams, Lumberman, Distinct, Trees, Ego, bodies, prettiness, form Syntax: appositives: grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind, a squeak of planes Sound: Alliteration: sharp‐shrill‐shut‐shrieking, squeals‐screams‐squeak, Something‐circular‐solid‐sumptuous, planes‐prettiness‐presents, Distinct‐Trees‐ truly‐tightness, black‐unbunged‐bodies‐brain's‐biggest, grunting‐gushes, whose‐ hew, from‐form Centroidal: Semantics/Symbolism: full, pumped, sumptuous, between, of , Something, gushes, circular, Ego, from, out of, living, form Syntax: present tense: give, bulge, make, gushes, whisper, chops, hew Syntax: adjectives: sharp, thick, sumptuous, black, unbunged, circular, shrieking, solid, hugest, inherent, living, biggest, grunting Syntax: conjunction: and Syntax: partitives: screech of simplicity, squeak of planes, squeals of Nothing, Lumberman of the Distinct, Trees of Ego Syntax: relative clauses: which bulge, from whose living and biggest bodies Syntax: reduced relative clauses: pumped full of sharp thick mind, shut in the sumptuous screech of simplicity Assonance: give‐things‐which‐whisper‐Distinct‐living‐biggest‐thick, every‐ prettiness‐presents, brain's‐make‐planes‐vaguely, Trees‐Ego‐screams‐squeals‐ shrieking, mind‐tightness, us‐bulge‐grunting‐lungs‐pumped‐of‐us‐shut‐sumptuous‐ unbunged‐Something‐Nothing‐Lumberman, bodies‐lopped‐Picasso, axe‐grabbed‐ black Rhyme: you‐hew‐truly‐hugest, sumptuous‐pumped, planes‐brain's Linear Semantics/Symbolism: you, give, lungs, make, shut, planes, Lumberman, axe, chops, grabbed, hew Syntax: SVOO clauses (you give us things which bulge; you make us shrill presents); SVO clauses (your brainʹs axe only chops hugest inherent Trees of Ego) Syntax: vocatives: Picasso, Lumberman of the Distinct Syntax: 2nd person: you, your, you, us, us Syntax: verbs: give, bulge, make, gushes, whisper, chops, hew, pumped, shut, grabbed, lopped Sound: consonance: grunting‐shut‐out‐tightness‐inherent‐biggest, sharp‐ sumptuous‐chops‐lopped, thick‐make‐black‐squeak‐shrieking‐axe, mind‐unbunged‐ grabbed‐solid, things‐screams‐gushes‐always‐Trees‐whose, which‐screech, us‐ whisper‐presents‐sumptuous‐axe‐chops‐prettiness, Lumberman‐sumptuous‐ Something‐screams‐pumped‐form, shrill‐bulge‐squeals Relative: Semantics/Symbolism: sharp, shrill, screech, or, squeals, Nothing, unbunged, vaguely, squeak, shrieking, screams, whisper, Distinct, brain, Trees, prettiness Syntax: proper nouns: Picasso Syntax: adverbs: always, truly, only, vaguely Syntax: disjunction: or Sound: pararhyme: from‐form, bodies‐unbunged, distinct‐tightness, squeak‐circular, screams‐Something‐sumptuous It is out of these densely elaborated but richly related/conflicting sounds and meanings that the most memorable lines/phrases/clauses/sentences in the poem are constructed, e.g., (out of the black unbunged Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind and shut in the sumptuous screech of simplicity. As Michael Welch has pointed out, this concentration of complementary/dissonant syntactic, sonic, and semantic/symbolic forms in a tight space is reminiscent of haiku. And sure enough, it is easy to construct strikingly effective haikus out of the language of Cummingsʹ ʺPicasso.ʺ Circular tightness. Shrieking planes, bulging bodies. Shrill simplicity. Shrill presents always. Lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind. Solid screams whisper. Black unbunged Something. Lumberman of the Distinct. Thick squeals of Nothing. Hugest, inherent; Lopped of every prettiness: Sumptuous screeching. Your brain's axe gives us Circular shrieking tightness. You hew form truly. 1 I call the approach to poetry I use in this essay to analyze Cummings' "Picasso" temporal poetics. For an overview of the rhythmics that I use to ground this temporal poetics, see Cureton Rhythmic Phrasing and "Metrical Reading." For overviews of the basic principles of temporal poetics, see "Inner form," "Language of Poetry," and "Telling Time." For how rhythm motivates linguistic form, see "Temporal Theory of Language." For a number of complete formal analyses, see "Temporality and Poetic Form" for Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay," "Stylistics and Poetics" for Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," "Process as Truth" for the opening of Walt Whitman's "Song of the Broad‐Axe," "Jakobson Revisited" for W. B. Yeats' "The Sorrow of Love," "Solitary Disciple," for William Carlos Williams' "To a Solitary Disciple," "Rhythmic Process" for D.H. Lawrence's "To Women, As Far As I'm Concerned," "Cummings and Temporality" for E. E. Cummings' "somewhere I have never travelled,gladly beyond," "liquor" for Emily Dickinson's "I taste a liquor never brewed," and "Map" for Elizabeth Bishop's "The Map." WORKS CITED Cohen, Milton. POETandPAINTER: The Aesthetics of E.E. Cummings. 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