Edward Estlin Cummings, who would later be known as e.e.cummings, was born on October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

e.e.cummings, 1894-1962

Cummings decided from an early age that he would be a poet, and from ages eight to twenty-two, he wrote a poem a day. He earned both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Harvard, and he went on to become one of the most influential poets of the 20th century.  He is known for his distinctive (some would say eccentric) personal style which did not conform to standards of linguistic structure and grammatical rules. Literary critic Randall Jarrell said of him, “No one else has every made avant-garde, experimental poems so attractive to the general and the special reader.” Poet James Dickey declared, “I think that Cummings is a daringly original poet, with more vitality and more sheer, uncompromising talent than any other living American writer.”


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