E. E. Cummings

The Enormous Room (Dodo Press) E. E. Cummings

Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962), popularly known as E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. He is remembered as a preeminent voice of 20th century poetry. His body of work encompasses more than 900 poems, several plays and essays, numerous drawings, sketches, and paintings, as well as two novels. In 1917, Cummings enlisted in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corp, but due to an administrative mix-up was not assigned to an ambulance unit for five weeks, during which time he stayed in Paris. Just five months after his belated assignment, he and a friend were arrested on suspicion of espionage and were sent to a military detention camp. Cummings' experiences in the camp were later related in his novel, The Enormous Room (1922). His next published work was a collection of poems entitled Tulips and Chimneys (1923). This work was the public's first encounter with his characteristic eccentric use of grammar and punctuation. During his lifetime, Cummings published four plays: HIM (1927), Anthropos: or, the Future of Art (1930), Tom: A Ballet (1935) and Santa Claus: A Morality (1946).