Is Five Book

Is 5 is an early collection of poems by E. E. Cummings (his fifth, if I'm not mistaken). The title, however, is not derived from this being his fifth collection, but rather from Cummings's approach to writing poetry, as Cummings explains in the Foreword...
Ineluctable preoccupation with The Verb gives a poet one priceless advantage: whereas nonmakers must content themselves with the merely undeniable fact that two time two is four, he rejoices in a purely irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, upon the title page of the present volume.)
- Foreword

is 5 is a continuation of the poet's exploration of love and the triumph of the individual over conformity and complacency...
you being in love
will tell who softly asks in love,

am i separated from your body smile brain hands merely
to become the jumping puppets of a dream? oh i mean:
entirely having in my careful how
careful arms created this at length
inexcusable, this inexplicable pleasure - you go from several
persons: believe me that strangers arrive
when i have kissed you into a memory
slowly, oh seriously
- that since and if you disappear

solemnly
myselves
ask "life, the question how do i drink dream smile

and how do i prefer this face to another and
why do i weep eat sleep - what does the whole intend"
they wonder. oh and they cry "to be,being,that i am alive
this absurd fraction in its lowest terms
with everything cancelled
but shadows
- what does it all come down to? love? Love
if you like and i like, for the reason that i
hate people and lean out of this window is love,love
and the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love and the reason

that i do not fall into this street is love."
- FOUR, XII (pg. 101)

My favourite poems share one characteristic: they have been fragmented and must be re-assembled like a puzzle. Although there weren't many of those in this particular collection (much to my disappointment)...
ta
ppin
g
toe

hip
popot
amus Back

gen
teel-ly
lugu-
bri ous

eyes
LOOPTHELOOP

as

fathandsbangrag
- ONE, XXXVI (pg. 48)


it's jolly
odd what pops into
your jolly tete when the
jolly shells begin dropping jolly fast you
hear the rrmp and
then nearerandnearerandNEARER
and before
you can

!

& we're

NOT
(oh -
- i say

that's jolly odd
old thing, jolly
odd, jolly
jolly odd isn't
it jolly odd.
- TWO, IV (pg. 63)


inthe,exquisite;

morning sure lyHer eye s exactly sit,ata little roundtable
among otherlittle roundtables Her,eyes count slow(ly

obstre poroustimidi ties surElyfl)oat iNg,the

of pieces ofof sunligh tof fa l l in gof throughof treesOf.

(Field Elysian

the like,a)slEEping neck a breathing a ,lies
(slo wlythe wom an pa)ris her
flesh:wakes
in little streets

while exactlygir lisHlegs;play;ing;nake;D
and

chairs wait under the trees

Field slowly Elysian in
a firmcool - Ness taxis,s.QuirM

and, b etw ee nch air st ott er s thesillyold
WomanSellingBaloonS

In theex qui site

morning,
her sureLyeye s sit-ex actly her sitsat a surely!little,
roundtable amongother;littleexactly round. tables,

Her
.eyes
- THREE, V (pg. 79)


take it from me kiddo
believe me
my country, 'tis of

you,land of the Cluett
Shirt Boston Garter and Spearmint
Girl With The Wrigley Eyes(of you
land of the Arrow Ide
and Earl &
Wilson
Collars)of you i
sing:land of Abraham Lincoln and Lydia E. Pinkham,
land above all of Just Add Hot Water And Serve -
from every B. V. D.

let freedom ring

amen. i do however protest,anent the un
-spontaneous and otherwise scented merde which
greets one(Everywhere Why)as divine poesy per
that and this radically defunct periodical. i would

suggest that certain ideas gestures
rhymes,like Gillette Razor Blades
having been used and reused
to the mystical moment of dullness emphatically are
Not To Be Resharpened. (Case in point

if we are to believe these gently O sweetly
melancholy trillers amid the thrillers
these crepuscular violinists among my and your
skyscrapers - Helen & Cleopatra were Just Too Lovely,
The Snail's On The Thorn enter Morn and God's
In His andsoforth

do you get me? )according
to such supposedly indigenous
throstles Art is O World O Life
a formula:example, Turn Your Shirttails Into
Drawers and If It Isn't An Eastman It Isn't A
Kodak therefore my friends let
us now sing each and all fortissimo A-
mer
i

ca, I
love,
You. And there're a
hun-dred-mil-lion-oth-ers,like
all of you successfully if
delicately gelded (or spaded)
gentlemen(and ladies) - pretty

littleliverpil-
heated-Nujolneeding-There's-A-Reason
americans(who tensetendoned and with
upward vacant eyes,painfully
perpetually crouched,quivering,upon the
sternly allotted sandpile
-how silently
emit a tiny violetflavoured nuisance: Odor?

ono.
comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush
- Poem, Or Beauty Hurts Mr. Vinal (pg. 8-9)