E. E. Cummings Reads “Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town” (Harvard, 1953)
By Maria Popova
“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life,” Hemingway observed in his short and stirring 1954 Nobel Prize acceptance speech. “One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag sighed. “Learn to be alone,” Tarkovsky advised young people. And yet the art of being alone comes with a dark side, the loneliness of a nonconformist amidst the herd mentality of society — something e. e. cummings captures poignantly in his poem “[anyone lived in a pretty how town],” originally published in the 1940 edition of Poetry Magazine and later included in E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems, 1904-1962 (public library). Tucked inside it is one of the most beautiful poetry lines of all time: “down they forgot as up they grew.”
On May 28, 1953, while lecturing as a visiting professor at Harvard, cummings recorded this mesmerizing reading of the poem — let his voice sweep you away:
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rainchildren guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by morewhen by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to hersomeones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dreamstars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by wasall by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
The recording appears on Essential E.E. Cummings CD, which is altogether sublime. Complement it with the poetry of cummings set to song.
Thanks, Tom
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Published April 5, 2013
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https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/04/05/e-e-cummings-reads-anyone-lived-in-a-pretty-how-town/
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