A Flawed Love Poem
E. E. Cummings’ ‘somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond’
This poem has five verse paragraphs, displaying Cummings' signature style: odd use of punctuation and spacing, unusual word order, and other variant uses of language.
First Verse Paragraph: “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond”
The speaker opens with a claim that there is a place where he has never gone but would like to go there. He addresses a woman, whose eyes he claims are unexpressive, that is, not giving him any indication that she would like to “travel” with him. His use of the British spelling of “traveled” adds nothing to the poem; it merely makes the reader wonder why he did that.
Nevertheless, any movement the woman makes opens him up to the possibility of lovemaking. She excites him, but his feelings are so deep that he feels he cannot express them to her.
Second Verse Paragraph: “your slightest look easily will unclose me”
Beginning in the first verse paragraph with the claim, “your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,” the speaker uses terms meaning “close” and “open” to suggest how the woman makes him want to open his emotions to her as well as his body.
He says, “your slightest look easily will unclose me / though i have closed myself as fingers.” Her quickest glance arouses him, even though he had previously closed himself up as a hand makes a fist.
Then he likens his feelings to the opening of a rose in spring, which also implies the arousal of sensual feeling: the rose opening petal by petal hints at shedding clothes as well as opening the body during love-making.
Third Verse Paragraph: “or if your wish be to close me,i and”
If the speaker’s desire is finally matched by the woman’s, he will become so totally enthralled that his “life will shut very beautifully,suddenly.” The speaker then adds an impossible comparison: his life will shut like a flower imagining the fall of snow.
The reader can only guess at how a flower might feel, and when the reader does so, s/he will probably just be thinking about s/he (the reader) feels with snow “descending” “carefully everywhere.”
Fourth Verse Paragraph: “nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals”
Then the speaker makes another non-sense remark: “nothing we are to perceive in the world equals / the power of your intense fragility.” So the woman is extremely fragile or gentle; even if there is nothing else as gentle or fragile, the claim does not move the poem forward. If the speaker had claimed that “nothing he could perceive” could equal that power, then the reader can believe that the speaker’s exaggeration merely shows the intensity of his emotions for the woman.
To make matters more frustrating he claims that her fragility “compels [him] with the colour of its countries.” Why the British spelling of “color”? Even for a poem that pushes the envelope as far as Cummings’, a British spelling offers nothing useful for the poem.
Fifth Verse Paragraph: “(i do not know what it is about you that closes”
The last paragraph offers a startling image: the woman’s hand are so small that not even the rain has smaller hands. Personifying rain might speak to the image of opening roses, but during rain roses tend to close instead of open.
Otherwise, the speaker merely claims that he doesn’t understand why he is so attracted to this woman; he only knows that “the voice of [her] eyes is deeper than all roses).” He imagines that her feeling for him might be harder to get at than peeling back the petals of roses.
Commentary
E. E. Cummings has written some fine poems, and his use of unorthodox grammar and mechanics can be fun and even enhance his meaning. Unfortunately, this poem is not one his best. Sometimes poets are tricked by their own ingenuity.
For another view, please see "Rethinking Cummings' Poem: 'somewhere i have never travelled' "
Another Cummings article: E. E. Cummings: Innovative, Spiritual Poet
