anyone lived in a pretty how town

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1940

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

This poem contains nine quatrains—stanzas of four lines—that flow with the poem’s obsession with cycles and seasons (four seasons for four lines).

The poem mostly follows an AABB rhyme scheme, though this isn’t a strict pattern, and makes use of both perfect (“down”/“town”) and imperfect rhymes (“same”/“rain”).

The most interesting aspect of the poem’s form and meter is its rhythm. Cummings does not follow a traditional pattern like iambic pentameter; instead, he uses accentual verse. Accentual verse is a meter that focuses on accents per line. In this poem’s case, the lines each contain four stressed syllables. Here is an example of how the poem uses these stresses:

children guessed(but only a few

and down they forgot as up they grew

autumn winter spring summer)

that noone loved him more by more

(Lines 9-12)

As this stanza shows, most of the lines alternate between stressed and unstressed syllables. The alternating gives the poem a singsong feel, and the consistent stresses follow traditional nursery rhyme formats. For example, compare the above stanza to a stanza from “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”:

Twinkle Twinkle Little star

How I wonder what you are

Up above the world so high

Like a diamond in the sky.

Here, the nursery rhyme mainly uses trochees (a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable) and contains four stresses per line. Again, the effect of this is a childlike, singsong feel that reads smoothly out loud.

Parallelism and Contrast

Throughout the poem, Cummings uses parallelism and contrast for both lyrical and thematic effects. Part of the way he does this is through the repetition of phrases and inversion of words, using similar structure and phrasing (parallelism) to highlight the differences between two entities or ideas (contrast).

There are a number of lines that demonstrate these devices, including the following: “he sang his didn’t he danced his did” (Line 4), “they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same” (Line 7), “and down they forgot as up they grew” (Line 10), “she laughed his joy she cried his grief” (Line 14), and “with up so floating many bells down” (Line 24).

A line like “and down they forgot as up they grew” serves as a great example to examine what Cummings is doing throughout the poem. First, the structure of the line is repetitive; he repeats the phrase structure “conjunction adverb pronoun verb.” Therefore, each phrase contains pairs: and/as, down/up, they/they, forgot/grew. This structure helps Cummings keep the rhythm of the line, but it also reinforces the idea of cyclical time and the repetitive nature of existence. Additionally, forming the line this way adds complexity to the idea he is trying to express. The line literally means that the kids forgot the things they once cared about as they aged, but by expressing this with contrasting ideas (down/up), the action of the line stands out and has power.

As the line shows, Cummings effectively combines a parallel structure with contrasting words and ideas to both strengthen the effect of the lines in the poem and give the poem his trademark stylistic flair.

Syntax and Unusual Conventions

Cummings often uses inverted or reversed syntax in his poetry, and he often messes with English conventions like spacing, spelling, and compound words. In this poem, he shows his wide range of stylistic quirks.

There are a few lines where he inverts syntax, such as “with up so floating many bells down” (Line 24). Here, Cummings completely reverses traditional English grammar, which usually follows a subject-verb pattern. He instead uses a verb-subject pattern, putting “floating” before “bells.” Lines like this help him keep the rhythm, and Cummings’s willingness to buck traditional grammar gives him more flexibility when trying to rhyme.

Another quirk he uses is changing the part of speech of certain words. A good example of this is the line “he sang his didn’t he danced his did” (Line 4). Here, the words “didn’t” and “did” function as nouns when they are normally verbs. By changing the part of the speech of the words, Cummings adds a surreal feeling to the line and expresses the ideas he’s going for in an economical way. Instead of writing, “He sang about the things he didn’t do and danced about the things he did,” Cummings is able to structure a creative, unique, modern way of expressing an idea.

One final structural quirk of this poem is Cummings’s use of parentheses. He uses parentheses to add personality to the speaker and to help the reader navigate the intended rhythm of the poem. For example, in the third stanza, Cummings uses parentheses in the first line to create a more natural caesura. He writes, “Women and men(both little and small)” (Line 5). The parentheses create a forced pause that might be more difficult to detect without them, and without the pause, the rhythm of the line wouldn’t be as smooth as it is. It’s important to remember that Cummings intended his poems to be read out loud, so little quirks like this are visual cues for readers that help the poem flow in an effective way.