Poet’s Corner-May 20, 2022

Every Friday, James Blevins, this newspaper’s in-house reporter and poet—who has seen his work previously published in “Salt Hill Journal,” “Pretty Owl Poetry,” “Stoneboat Journal,” “Mud Season Review” and “AZURE,” as well as numerous other outlets both online and in print—chooses one poem for publication.

Additionally, Blevins will share a poem of his own, just for good measure, at the end of each calendar month.

[since feeling is first]

By E. E. Cummings

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry

—the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Edward Estlin Cummings was born on October 14, 1894, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Forerunner of the modernist free-form movement in poetry during the early 20^th Century, Cummings was also an essayist, novelist and playwright. Some of his published works of poetry include “Tulips and Chimneys” (1923), “is 5” (1926), “No Thanks” (1935) and “XAIPE: Seventy-One Poems” (1950). He died of a stroke on September 3, 1962, at the age of 67.