The poem for today’s episode is : is 5 by ee cummings. It was written in 1926, and it has an unusual sonnet structure– It’s still 14 lines, but it’s got 13 lines together followed by a one line volta (ending couplet, or in this case a singlet) that changes the entire meaning of the poem. This is typical cummings– he uses the form brilliantly, but also manages to subvert it and modernize it at the same time.
visit the ee cummings author page here.
is 5 by ee cummings
“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ’tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water