is 5

is 5 (1926)
E. E. Cummings

ONE

→

sister projects: Wikipedia article, Commons category, Wikidata item.

E. E. Cummings3871898is 51926Is 5-e. e. cummings-002.png

IS FIVE

FIVE BOOKS
by E. E. Cummings
1. The Enormous Room
2. Tulips and Chimneys
3. &
4. Xli Poems
5. Is Five ❡

by E. E. Cummings

is

LIVERIGHT
New York

COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY HORACE LIVERIGHT

LIVERIGHT PUBLISHING CORPORATION

LIVERIGHT PAPERBOUND EDITION 1970

SBN-87140-002-2

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-114376

Second Liveright Paperback Printing

Printed in the United States of America

FOREWORD

On the assumption that my technique is either complicated or original or both, the publishers have politely requested me to write an introduction to this book.

At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor isit complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz. “Would you hit a woman with a child?—No, I’d hit her with a brick.” Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement.

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little—somebody who is obsessed by Making. Like all obsessions, the Making obsession has disadvantages; for instance, my only interest in making money would be to make it. Fortunately, however, I should prefer to make almost anything else, including locomotives and roses. It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls) that my “poems” are competing.

They are also competing with each other, with elephants, and with El Greco.

Ineluctable preoccupation with The Verb gives a poet one priceless advantage: whereas nonmakers must content themselves with the merely undeniable fact that two times two is four, he rejoices in a purely irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, upon the title page of the present volume.)

E. E. Cummings.⁠

A LIST OF WHERE
THESE POEMS
have been published

*
England France Italy
Austria and
America
*

TITLE IS V
FOREWORD vii
ONE i–xl 1–55
TWO i–xi 57–72
THREE i–x 73–86
FOUR i–xviii 87–107
FIVE i–v 109–115