poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

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--bobby and friends

grasshopper

the first lines should be read grasshopper who as we look up now gathering into the ....

IT'S GRASSHOPPER REARRANGED, THE POEM ITSELF READS GRASSHOPPER, WHO, AS WE LOOK, NOW UPGATHERING INTO HIMSELF, LEAPS, ARRIVING TO BECOME, REARRANGINGLY, A GRASSHOPPER

What is up with you people talking about how "the poem itself reads" or "the first lines should be read"? For one thing, both proposals are clearly wrong.

"shelley" misses the 'a' that occurs between 'int(o-' and 'The'. And you'll notice she has no suggestion to make about what follows the 'The' (since 'leaps' appears to serve as a noun, not a plural verb).

And "DNIQUE" misses out on the 'The' altogether. Perhaps s/he would want to tack it on to the beginning of his/her proposal.

These readings are instructive only insofar as they show that the poem can't be straightforwardly rearranged into a grammatical narrative. And that should come as no surprise. After all, why would Cummings have wanted to write such a boring poem as shelley and DNIQUE would have you read?

i think cummings intended to translate the impeccable occurences where from complete pandemonium arrive unexpectedly and completely irreverently perfect peace. there is no explanation, but life just contorts in its own damn-fangled way. is it futile to enact control on anything?

also, read this while listening to Neutral Milk Hotel. Maybe that's why i'm wacko.

The typesetting in this version of the poem is misleading. For correct spacing, visit the following link, which contains a proof annotated by Cummings:
http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/proof1.html

the point isn't really what it says, but rather how it says...the words all jump around like a grasshopper.

this poem does not have a specific way of interpreting it. Sherri needs to learn that they are not "wrong" and
there are multiple ways of reading it.

the poem is a visual work. The grasshopper is unclear until it comes to the front where it is noticeably a grasshopper.

I agree with SMLRN, the poem, like any other can be interpretted many ways. I thought I'd run this one by everybody here who seems to understand and enjoy the poem to some extent. My belief is that the poem isn't necassarily about a grasshopper perhaps, but about writers in general.
Writers have an idea, which can be rough looking, and they make the leap (they write their work) and then with the S added on seperate, it turns the word into a verb. the authors then leap and send it to be edited, and it all rearranges to be something proper with commas and apostrophes and correct spelling, but totally different than the original product. The way I interpretted this poem is a satire of the editorial system of literary works that cummings dissagrees with. He thinks it's a mess, so he roughly writes his poem to resemble the same structure. sound resonable to anyone?