E. E. Cummings: a poet's life by Catherine Reef
New York : Clarion Books, c2006.
149 p. : ill. ; 26 cm.
Finishing up April, National Poetry Month, with this biography of the famous US poet, e.e. cummings, seemed like a good idea. And it was! Reef has put together a wonderful and accessible biography of Cummings. I really appreciated that Reef manages to present a lot of information in a manageable number of pages - and yet really develops a fascinating portrait of Cummings as a truly unique artist and human being.
I was really struck by how original Cummings was. His poetry still has a freshness and vitality, but must have seemed stunningly unique when he published it. Reef also gives attention to Cummings serious work as a painter (as the self-portrait above reveals).
Reef also conveys what an original Cummings was in so many ways. Though from a very conventional family, he rebelled by moving to Greenwich Village, volunteering to be an ambulance driver in WWI, traveling widely abroad, championing avant-garde artists (e.g. the Armory Show artists).
Reef manages to convey the various milieus that defined Cummings' life - WWI, the 1920s, WWII, the New Deal, etc. She also brings Cummings to life as a man of great dedication, passion, talent, wit, playfulness and (yes) love - and all in the space of 149 pages enlivened with wonderful photographs and illustrations.
I would definitely recommend this book to any student curious about E. E. Cummings specifically or the life of an artist and writer generally.
No comments:
Post a Comment