Since feeling is first
e. e. cummings * Track #1 On is 5
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Since feeling is first by e. e. cummings
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e. e. cummingsAbout
One of Cummings' most famous love poems, “Since feeling is first” extols the carefree feeling of being in love above the brain’s tendency to overanalyze.
This poem is tricky to interrogate, since the whole point is to feel rather than think. But as long as one goes with the heart first, we should b...
Since feeling is first Annotated
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
Since feeling is first Q&A
Who was this poem written for?
As far as we know, Cummings could have been addressing an imaginary women. Some speculate that it was written for Anne Minnerly Barton, Cummings’s future second wife whom he was eyeing on at that time.
What are the form and meter? Is there a rhyme scheme?
There is no rhyme scheme nor is there a consistent meter in this five-stanza poem. However, it has a few instances of alliteration, enjambment, and assonance.