I Carry Your Heart Poem (A Love Expression by E. E. Cummings)
– I Carry Your Heart Poem –
“I Carry Your Heart with Me” by E. E. Cummings, frequently cited as one of the most discussed love poems of the modern era, was originally published in 1952.
I Carry Your Heart Poem by E. E. Cummings
The strength and unity of love, as well as how love connects not only two people but the entire planet, are the main themes of Cummings’ poem.
I carry your heart with me (I carry it inmy heart) I am never without it(anywhereI go, you go, my dear; and whatever is doneBy only me is your doing,my darling)I fearNo fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I wantno world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meantAnd whatever a sun will always sing is youHere is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the budand the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which growshigher than soul can hope or mind can hide)And this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apartI carry your heart (I carry it in my heart).
- How to Annotate a Poem
- Poem to My Son in Heaven
- The Measure of a Man’s Poem
- Roses are Red, Violets are Blue Poem
Analysis of Cummings’s Poem
One of the most well-known love poems of the contemporary era is Cummings’ “I Carry Your Heart with Me,” which was originally published in 1952.
This poem clarifies Cummings enjoyed writing about matters of love.
The poem’s narrator, who is madly in love with his significant other, claims that their union is unlike any other.
It speaks to all relationships, not simply those between lovers.
The speaker of the poem asserts in the opening section he does everything for his sweetheart, that they are always connected, and that he constantly thinks about them.
Cummings overstates how much the speaker loves his partner.
The speaker claims in the second stanza that the only thing that concerns him is losing his sweetheart.
He claims his boyfriend is everything to him and that he wishes both their love and his lover never change.
The speaker’s significant other is his fate, and his universe, Cummings is explicitly expressing.
Further Insight into the “I Carry Your Heart Poem”
To provide a clearer picture of the speaker’s love, he goes on to personify the acts of the sun and moon.
In the third stanza, Cummings shows how people’s reluctance to commit to a relationship prevents love from shining and blossoming.
Here, Cummings employs exaggeration and symbolism. The roots and buds portray the difficulties that individuals encounter falling in love.
Hyperbole is used to highlight why love is such a terrifying concept in the world by comparing the problem of falling in love and relationships to the marvel that keeps stars apart.
He employed repetition in the final sentence to carry the theme of the speaker’s affection. Cummings uses the first person to personalize and sentimentalize the poetry.
Summary of the Poem
One of E. E. Cummings’ love sonnets begins, I carry your heart with me. It has the distinctive grammar of Cummings, which is unconventional, experimental, and challenging to understand. It is a typical lighthearted yet heartfelt poetry.
Instead of the customary 14 lines, the poem contains 15.
There are lines with complete rhymes (true/you) and lines with slant rhymes (want/meant).
Parentheses and phrases in brackets are often used.
Because there is little to no punctuation and no period (or full stop in British English), the reader must choose when and where to halt for the best impact while reading.
Sometimes natural caesuras are helpful.
It’s difficult for anyone unfamiliar with the poet’s poetry to read this sonnet and understand its structure!
For the initial reading, it’s best to read it slowly, then have yourself read it loudly for emphasis.
The realization that this sonnet is an unconventional treatment of standard topics (love and affection) will only occur then.
READ ALSO:
- Fire Walk with Me Poem
- Mothers Day Poem from Toddler
- The Man from Snowy River Poem
- If Tomorrow Starts Without Me Poem
William Carlos Williams Purview
Cummings is renowned for his eccentric sentences, odd punctuation, and creative spellings (spelling).
He ignored custom and protocol from an early age and focused on the unusual and extraordinary.
The eminent poet-doctor William Carlos Williams gave him the moniker “lower case Cummings.”
Form and line were his natural playthings, and spontaneity and unpredictableness characterizes his work.
The stiff, predictable rhythms of iambic full rhyming poetry offended Cummings. He favored a little disarray in his lines rather than precise quatrains and epic stanzas:
Let’s live suddenly without thinking
Actualities, Sonnet VI’s first line (from Tulip & Chimneys, 1922 manuscript)
He also composed a poem on prioritizing emotions above order and organization:
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
Once he had overcome the limitations of traditional verse, Cummings wrote revolutionary poems, but he struggled to have his writing published.
Review from Other Readers
Others found the outlandish style and syntax repulsive, while others found it cute and romantic.
After studying modernist art and literature in Paris and around Europe, he continued to develop his poems in an abstract, almost painterly style. He proclaimed:
‘The day of the spoken lyric is past. The poem which has at last taken its place does not sing itself; it builds itself, three dimensionally, gradually, subtly, in the experiencer’s consciousness.’ (Richard S. Kennedy: On E. E. Cummings | Modern American Poetry, Notes, Houghton Library, Harvard University)
Tulips&Chimneys, his debut novel, was released in 1922. T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” was published in this same year, while Frost’s book New Hampshire from 1923 included his well-known poem “Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening.”
In 1923, the ground-breaking first volume of Wallace Stevens’ Harmonium was also released.
Tulips&Chimneys, however, artistically stole the show. Cummings experimented with syntax, the order in which they placed phrases in a line or stanza, and he disregarded the conventional forms of poetry.
In the poetry community, they persuaded not everyone:
Edmund Wilson’s Negativity on I Carry Your Heart
His poems are disgusting on the paper. Even the least unusual of his lines, which are better reproduced as tidy little blocks of type, are insisted upon being broken up by him. (Edmund Wilson, Tulips & Chimneys review in the New Republic, March 19, 1924)”
Much of the vocabulary in I take your heart with me I carry it in” is characteristic of love sonnets by Cummings, including stars, the sun, moon, the heart, the blossom, the soul, the root, the marvel, the sweetheart, the sky, and so on.
The way the written word is presented and the syntax distinguish it.
We hope this brings meaning to this poem. Do well to share this and your thoughts on the poem.
