So Wrong In So Many Ways

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the women of ee cummings

As an artist myself I have always been fascinated by The Muse. Who she is, how she comes to be and the value of her impression. She leaves her thumbprint on artist, art and song, and us, her audience. We see her in image and lyric and feel we know her; certainly, we appreciate her, but she is anonymous even if her name is known. Why? Because The Muse isn't the presence we see or hear in a masterpiece, she is the impressive experience shared with and breathing through the artist. Whether fleeting or lingering, loved or despised, the power of her impact is admittedly, deliciously enigmatic.

Estlin (Edward Estlin) Cummings, 'ee cummings', had the innate ability to express this enigma with such a raw profundity my fascination is captured again and again. He had numerous lovers throughout various phases in his life, but few of these made it through his pen or brush. The few that did were women of two sorts; long-term emotional & physical partners (beautiful all three) and the infamous prostitutes of Paris, whom he socialized with as 'friends'. All of his relationships were smacked with debauchery and ended in scandal or torment, except for his beloved Marion with whom he shared the last 25+ years of his life (it is unclear if they were ever legally married).

Cummings met his first wife, Elaine Orr-Thayer while she was married to his college buddy, Scotfield in 1918. The two had an affair, condoned by Scotfield, which resulted in pregnancy. They were married in 1924 and divorced a mere two months later. For her he wrote the poem, 'i like my body when it is with your' printed on the header of my blog. Elaine has been noted as being a sadist of sorts, often ridiculing Cummings' sexual performance in front friends and colleagues.

goodby Betty,don't remember me
pencil your eyes dear and have a good time
with the tall tight boys at Tabari'
s,keep your teeth snowy,stick to beer and lime,
wear dark, and where your meeting breasts are round
have roses darling,it's all i ask of you--
but that when light fails and this sweet profound
Paris moves with lovers,two and two
bound for themselves,when passionately dusk
brings softly down the perfume of the world
(and just as smaller stars begin to husk
heaven)you,you exactly paled and curled

with mystic lips take twilight where i know:
proving to Death that Love is so and so.

In 1917 Cummings sailed off to France with the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps and was greatly influenced by the amorous free-style Parisian sensibilities toward sex. Here he spent considerable time in the companionship of a prostitute named Marie Louise Lallemand, and her illustrious cohorts. It's thought that his relationship with Marie Louise was strictly platonic due to the fact that Cummings had expressed his fears of contracting venereal disease in letters and journals, but it's not known for certain. It is known that they were friends and spent many days and nights with one another.


Anne Barton was a woman also of poly-amorous leanings who lived the 20's flapper lifestyle to the hilt. Cummings is assumed to have met her sometime in 1925 while she was in the keep of a wealthy Manhattan business man, known only by the name of Douglas whom Cummings dubbed "the merchant prince". Her allegiance to 'the merchant prince' continued well into her marriage to Cummings in 1929 in spite of his distaste. Anne's intoxicating beauty and lifestyle (she was the epitome of a party girl) resonated with Cummings and together they were known for hitting scenes and hosting outlandish drunken parties. It is known that Cummings kept detailed lists and journals of his sex partners/conquests, in one journal he said of Anne, "If Anne came into a room, every cock hit the ceiling." Shortly after meeting her he wrote:

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers.Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other;then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

His words of tender surrender could not then indicate the bitter theatrics the ending of their relationship would bring. Frustrated by Anne's promiscuity Cummings sought out psychiatric care for Anne and himself. The therapy was to no avail as Anne continued with her affairs (although hypocritically Cummings indulged in his own as well) and ultimately he cut off having sex with her because, in his words, "her bitchiness made her unbeautiful" to him.
They were divorced in 1932.

That same year he met the woman who would captivate his heart and hold it until his death in 1962. Marion Morehouse, 12 years Cummings junior, was a thriving model and muse to the great fashion photographer, Edward Steichen. The two were introduced at a dinner party and in classic Cummings style, fell into bed that first night and never parted.

because i love you)last night

clothed in sealace
appeared to me
your mind drifting
with chuckling rubbish
of pearl weed coral and stones;

lifted,and(before my
eyes sinking)inward,fled;softly
your face smile breasts gargled
by death:drowned only

again carefully through deepness to rise
these your wrists
thighs feet hands

poising
to again utterly disappear;
rushing gently swiftly creeping
through my dreams last
night,all of your
body with its spirit floated
(clothed only in

the tide's acute weaving murmur

Although the above poems are poignant and touching, his more erotic verse written before the time of Anne and Marion, include some of my favorites. In these, Cummings exposes his sexual self and desire with an arresting honesty that is at the same time groping and raw. These poems are known to be written about Elaine ~the joy of newness & firsts when all is yet possible and remains to be had...

O It's Nice To Get Up In,the slipshod mucous kiss
of her riant belly's fooling bore
--When The Sun Begins To(with a phrasing crease
of hot subliminal lips,as if a score
of youngest angels suddenly should stretch neat necks
just to see how always squirms
the skilful mystery of Hell)me suddenly

grips in chuckles of supreme sex.

In The Good Old Summer Time.
My gorgeous bullet in tickling intuitive flight
aches,just,simply,into,her. Thirsty
stirring. (Must be summer. Hush. Worms.)

But It's Nicer To Lie In Bed
---eh? I'm

not. Again. Hush. God. Please hold. Tight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And finally, my all time favorite:

my girl's tall with hard long eyes
as she stands,with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress,good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire,when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes makes
gaily go clean through me tickling aches,
and the weak noise of her eyes easily files
my impatience to an edge--my girl's tall
and taut,with thin legs just like a vine
that's spent all of its life on a garden-wall,
and is going to die. When we grimly go to bed
with these legs she begins to heave and twine
about me,and to kiss my face and head.

For further reading about the personal (as well as the professional) life of Cummings, may I suggest: "E.E. Cummings: a biography", 2004, Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno. Lauçanno dug deep to unveil not only the professional biography of, but the inner workings and intimate life of this literary great. I highly recommend. Happy reading ~Ilaria