E.E.CUMMINGS: COLLECTED POEMS/SCARCE 1946

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COLLECTED POEMS. BY E. E . CUMMINGS . New York : Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1946. Scarce.A solid and attractive scarce book. Published more than 75 years ago, this edition is now long out of print and hard to find.From the dust jacket: "The work that Cummings has set himself to do and has done with singular constancy, is a poet's work. A natural poet who has cared less than any others of his time for the year-to-year fluctuations of the market... His recognition is imperative for the continuation of poetry." -- Peter Monro Jack -- N. Y. Times Book Review. "No contemporary verse is more brilliant. Cummings in his mock-heroic verses marshals a cant vocabulary, images, and ceremonials which scintiallantly parody their objects. Indeed, he has mastery of comic and satiric form not unworthy of Dryden. The element of invention and surprise too is constant in his verse; and the rhythms are irregular, intricate, and dynamic, and the language has a punch. And where, as in certain gorgeous sonnets, his material is the profounder feeling, where he is drunk with beauty, his poetry has magic, ecstasy, and individually penetrating tones of the great romantic lineage." -- Paul Rosenfield --The Nation"According to Wikipedia: "Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), known as E. E . Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e e cummings (in the style of some of his poems--see name and capitalization, below), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. He is remembered as an eminent voice of 20th century English literature. Despite Cummings's familiarity with avant- garde styles (undoubtedly affected by the Calligrammes of Apollinaire, according to a contemporary observation[19]), much of his work is quite traditional. Many of his poems are sonnets, albeit often with a modern twist, and he occasionally made use of the blues form and acrostics. Cummings' poetry often deals with themes of love and nature, as well as the relationship of the individual to the masses and to the world. His poems are also often rife with satire. While his poetic forms and themes share an affinity with the romantic tradition, Cummings' work universally shows a particular idiosyncrasy of syntax, or way of arranging individual words into larger phrases and sentences. Many of his most striking poems do not involve any typographical or punctuation innovations at all, but purely syntactic ones..."---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Octavo - sized hardcover book with dust jacket; 315 pages of text. Very Good+ condition: no torn or missing pages; no writing or markings in the text; inscription on ffep. Original hardcover binding, with only light wear. Fair condition dust jacket, with wear, tearing, uneven darkening, creasing, fraying to spine tips and corners. Protected by a clear plastic brodart sleeve. A solid and attractive copy of this book.Please look through my other auction listings- I have listed many scarce and unusual books this week on ebay. Please bid on more than one book, because I will be happy to reduce shipping costs for multiple purchases; media mail postage is $4 for this listing, and $1 for each additional book that you win from me. International bids welcomed, international airmail postage $22; Canadian airmail postage $16. read more

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