ee cummings, foreword to is 5
On the assumption that my technique is either complicated or original
or both, the publishers have politely requested me to write an
introduction to this book.
At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from
original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by
quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer. of burlesk, viz.,
'Would you hit a woman with a child?-No, I'd hit her with a brick.' Like
the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which
creates movement.
If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very
little-somebody who is obsessed by Making. Like all obsessions, the
Making obsession has disadvantages; for instance, my only interest in
making money would be to make it. Fortunately, however, I should prefer
to make almost anything else, including locomotives and roses. It is
with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring electricity
Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls) that my
'poems' are competing.
They are also competing with each other, with elephants, and with El Greco.
Ineluctable preoccupation with The Verb gives a poet one priceless
advantage: whereas nonmakers must content themselves with the merely
undeniable fact that two times two is four, he rejoices in a purely
irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, upon the title
page of the present volume).
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