"r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r" E. E. Cummings

When I actually had a first glance of Cummings's poem, I did not find it
attractive or interesting at all. I noticed how everything was out of
order, and there were no clear words or sentences. "How is this a
poem? Is this guy on drugs?" But, I guess I had to read the poem for
class, so I started to try to make sense of the poem. At first, I just
thought he was trying to make a point by stringing along random letters so that
no one could understand them but him. But, taking a second time to read
the poem, I almost tried to look at it as a puzzle. Maybe there was some
code or sequence of the letters that made sense. Then, on my third read, I
started to find words:
"as we look
up now
gathering into a leap
arriving to
become rearrangingly
grasshopper"

Notice I left out some words/letters (The, who, S). I couldn't figure out
initially where "The" went. Then I started to enjoy the poem. It was
a literary puzzle! I wanted to know where "The" fit in the poem
correctly, and I also wanted to know if the punctuation was random or also
fit into some logical sequence. And why were some letters capitalized, but
others weren't? And the most important question, why a poem about a
grasshopper?

Unfortunately, I have not completely figured out the grasshopper
poem. However, I don't think that is the major exercise Cummings wanted
people to do when reading this poem. Obviously, the randomness of the poem
grabs the reader's attention, and then maybe the reader will want to figure the
poem out, however I think Cummings had some personal tie to this poem which he
wanted readers to see. Maybe, he structured the poem this way to symbolize
a grasshopper. Grasshoppers jump around randomly and make high pitch
noises; while reading the poem, we see random jumps from words to letters to
punctuation, and maybe the punctuation and capitalization in the poem alludes to
noises made by grasshoppers. But, in my opinion, I don't think Cummings
was just talking about a simple grasshopper. Maybe when he wrote this poem
he was feeling like a grasshopper. Maybe he felt disorganized, yet
organic, in his life, and he tried to convey that in this poem. Or maybe he saw the grasshopper as crucial to his life, or some other "hippie" concept. Or it could be as simple as him observing a grasshopper, writing a poem about it, then making it fun. I don't know exactly, but I think that's what Cummings wanted, to make the poem more personal and yet open to interpretation.



All in all, I think Cummings reached his goal of making this poem interesting for readers. Even as I look at it now, I'm still trying to figure it out. What an ode to a grasshopper.