"somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond"

My feelings on modern poetry are not unknown. Ezra Pound impaled it on the stake of the dada art movement, and it has never recovered. All we get now is TV poetry -- skits of words that are entertaining and shiny but possess no architecture, no expressed intent of creation. However, one unique poet emerged from all of this; captivated this style; and perfected it. Every other tried to recreate it... since. And, with absolute disregard of any kind to whatever applicable copyrights that may exist (if it's on the Internet, it's free), I will reproduce one of his more technical pieces here.

E. E. Cummings - somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

That is perfectly simple. I am not going to bother with the interpretation because of the futility. But, each word break, comma, extra space, new line, odd punctation character -- each and every one has purpose. Each piece has a direct impact on the work. He, Cummings, put it there with expressed intent to affect the poem and, consequently, the reader. And, it matters not what his reasoning was. This is Scott's "Shookna"¹. This is the interaction between a conscious observer and his or her senses to apply a greater meaning. This is the immeasurable "force" that defines art. Art is not the medium, or the author, or the painter, or the intent. It is the activity of observing it², and no "Philosophy of Aesthetics" is going to remove the subjectivity. And, subjectivity sucks. It's an inherently volatile beast that runs down spiral staircases that have no landing. There is no fundamental art. There is no V=IR of art. There are effects that are unquantifiable, and this must be accepted lest you end up living in the attic of your own house pissing yourself while trying to assemble the whole from the pieces that are less than its sum.

So, how does the decay or modern poetry and the need to accept the inherent immeasurable nature of art tie together? They don't.

¹ Scott and I, about three months ago or so, had a debate over the existence of a "mysterious hippie force" that gives some pieces of nature value over others.

² About two years ago, I wrote a 10 page paper defining art as the subjective interaction between a thing ("thing" in the utmost technical sense) and an observer. I have a knack for wanting to define things but defining something that is subjective and then giving the subjective interaction a concrete criterion was difficult. I think I got a B on the paper.