Why I adore, “since feeling is first” by e.e. cummings

e.e. cummings first published, “since feeling is first” in 1926. The first reason I love this work is because it lacks regular capitalization and punctuation, which is very characteristic of cummings. He is rumored to have legally changed his name to all lowercase letters. This stylistically enhances the poem for me because e.e. is a rebel in respects to language. I am predisposed to liking a rebel.

It is one of my favorite poems because it is very upfront with the fact that it is about feeling, and feeling is the essence of poetry. Feeling is what every poem is about. Poems either get you to feel a certain way or tell you how the poet feels. This particular poem is expresses the value of feeling. It blatantly states its purpose in the title. The fact that the poem is so upfront it one of the reasons I love it.

Cummings is attempting to explain the notion that if you concentrate too much on how things work, and the general rules of life, you wont ever fully live. The simple gestures that one makes in the moment are worth far more than ones that have been over thought. 

The speaker’s begins with the stanza, “ since feeling is first/ who pays any attention to the syntax of things/ will never wholly kiss you;” this is arguably the main point if this entire work. If there is too much emphasis on the way things should be done how can you put you whole self into actually doing anything. The poem goes on to imply that the speaker is for “wholly” being a fool because, “kisses are a better fate/ than wisdom.” With this line the object of the speakers affection has apparently become upset. It may be because it is implied that his lover isn’t smart, but sweetly cummings goes on and reassures her that, nothing from his brain could mean more than the simple gesture of her “eyelids’ flutter” because that tells him that they are meant to be.

The poem then ends with, “for life's not a paragraph/ And death i think is no parenthesis”

these last few lines of this poem can be taken many ways and one reading of them does not necessary rule out the other. I feel that cummings refers to writing to imply the usage of syntax again alluding to his prior statements. I also feel that he chose these lines because we typically use parentheses to interrupt a sentence or to make a side comment. In this way he is saying that death is not separate from life, it is included in the experience. Death is not something that is all encompassing.