Cummings’ Arrangement of Words

Cummings’ Arrangement of Words

 E.E. Cummings poem, “mOOns Over tOwns mOOn” offers intrigue language of the structure and syntax. Like so many other poems he writes. He is the only early modern poet that experimented with language in a fanatical way. Has John Logan who wrote “The Organ-Grinder and the Cockatoo” (1970), expresses that Cummings’ work is: The orthographical inventions altered spellings, irregular use of lower case, and so on are expansions of the ancient poetic method of connotation, where a single word is pressed for richness latent in it (Kostelanetz, 75). 

The poem reflects the moon’s shape, size, its movement and beauty. Cummings shows this in the poem, by using: Capitalization, neologisms, breaking the words apart, and placing only one word in a line, has shown in the stanzas of the poem.

 In the second stanza: whO perfectly whO/flOat/newly alOne is/dreamiest, by capitalizing the O’s in “whO,” “float,” and “alOne” Cummings is saying that the words have ideographic connotations that “who,” “float,” and “alone” lack. Capitalizing brings more evocativeness to the words. E.E. Cummings uses neologisms quite often in his writings, which makes his writing interesting to read and leaves the reader thinking of the poem. He also uses neologisms in this stanza with the word “dreamiest.” The use of innovation, lines with only one word is another aspect of the first and second stanzas. Breaking apart traditional geometric formats in poetry, instead of always using the “normal” rectangular shaped stanzas, with set margins and aligned, by placing the poems in different forms brings a rich, alternative life to the page. When capitalizing the “O” in alOne, serves two purposes: First, it highlights the orthographic miming of the moon shape in the letter “o.” The second purpose it underlines the word “one” (unity), as the moon rises, it looks brand new and it is alone, hence: alOne. The word “float,” with the capital “O” creates a large, round white ball, which rises from the horizon. The “O” in moon is in the middle; therefore, visually rising out and above creating a coincidence of the term “flat.” The horizon is flat; therefore, the moon is rising above the horizon, breaking through the “flatness” and then appears a newly created moon.