This week, KUSC is offering collaborations between poets and musicians—good old stuff from folks you probably didn’t know had ever collaborated.
Each day on the radio, there’s an appealing sound byte. This morning, we heard from e.e. cummings (1894-1962)—that poet who likes to embed classic metric structures (rhymes and iambs) within a subversive forensics of language.
With collaboration (and creative relationships) on the mind, I re-read cummings’ 73 poems, and found myself transported to a city street corner in Poem 30, as a clown handed me a daisy.
Here is an excerpt from that piece in honor of poet, teacher and thinker—Jason Shinder:
and while never saying a word
who was anything but dumb;
since the silence of him
self sang like a bird.
Mostpeople have been heard
screaming for international
measures that will render hell rational
—i thank heaven somebody’s crazy
enough to give me a daisy.
* Self Portrait by e.e. cummings
-Jenny Factor