Bibliofreakblog

FreeVerse: plato told

I don’t like modern art.  I think it’s mostly just a bunch of paint splattered or brushed onto a canvas.  I feel that way about a great deal of modern poetry.

By all rights, I should dislike e.e. cummings.  But he broke down so many barriers of the art form, and influenced some of my favorite 20th century poets, like Jim Carroll, that I still have a soft spot for him.  

I picked a poem of cummings’ that I think I understand.  It’s about learning for yourself.  That’s not necessarily a good thing, as this poem is also about war and death.

It has no official title, but many of his poems just take the title of the first line of the poem.

“plato told” by e.e. cummings

plato told

him :he couldn’t
believe it(jesus

told him ;he
wouldn’t believe
it)lao

tsze
certainly told
him,and general
(yes

mam)
sherman;
and even
(believe it
or

not)you
told him :i told
him ;we told him
(he didn’t believe it,no

sir)it took
a nipponized bit of
the old sixth

avenue
el ;in the top of his head :to tell

him