ee cummings knows just what he’s doing. I picked up a copy of 100 Selected Poems of his. I love him for his initial appeal, his communication, his justified use of interesting phonetics and punctuation, the clarity of his thoughts and how brilliant they are.

Like Nietzsche and Wittgenstein he builds things up and gets you to sort of care about them, only to show you how worthless and insignificant they are:

ee: …& everything is protected by cellophane against anything (because nothing really exists.

fn: Zarathustra heard a wise man praised who was said to discourse well on sleep…Sleeping is no mean art: you need to stay awake all day to do it. You must overcome yourself ten times a day: that causes a fine weariness and is opium to the soul…This wise man seems to me a fool: but I believe he knows well enough how to sleep.

lw: I therefore believe myself to have found, on all essential points, the final solution to the problems. And if I am not mistaken in this belief, then the second thing in which the value of this work consists is that it shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved.

I also bought a book called The Prose Poem: An International Journal, Volume 4. I read John Yau’s ‘The newly renovated opera house on Gilligan’s island’. It’s a fun piece, like many others though. It reminded me of that guy who read at unspeakable practices, a kind of short-story about a hallographic virgin mary. And, my friend sam can write like this, fast-paced surrealism with just enough tie not to lose you, but not enough care to show you very much. It’s really fun, and don’t get me wrong I don’t want to knock it to much, but gimme a break it’s a bit like chewing gum - you put it in your mouth, you chew, you salivate, but it’s not really food.