[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

           

I have never understood the use of parentheses in poetry. Frequently they can be used “wrong”. One might assume that since it’s poetry, anything goes, but that is not the case. Poetry, while often shorter and harder to decipher than prose does have rules to a certain extent. Throwing around parentheses within the lines of your poetry might give the poem an air of sophistically, a look that is “edgy” and modern. But a “good” poem (which is of course relative to the reader) concerns itself not only with its appearance but with the meaning being conveyed. And what makes a poem successful is its ability to convey the meaning effectively. For years, I had thought e.e. cummings merely threw around grammatical mistakes and strange formatting to “defy the system”, but I was wrong. There is a clear purpose to his unusual style if only one would take the time to look just a bit deeper. His poem, “[i carry your heart with me(I carry it in]” reads as two poems.  

Here is the poem excluding the section in parentheses:

i carry your heart with me

i am never without it

                       

                        I fear

no fate I want

no world

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart

Here is the poem exclusively with the section in parentheses:

(i carry it in

My heart)  (anywhere

i go you go my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing my darling)

(for you are my fate,my sweet)

(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

And the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

Higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

(I carry it in my heart)

The phrase “i carry it in my heart” repeats a few times within the course of the poem. But every single time it appears, it appears within a set of parentheses e.e. cummings plays with his formatting, giving it a visual element as well. The parentheses represents the cavity of his heart, and by doing so (and keeping it consistent throughout the poem ) e.e. cummings paints a picture in his reader’s mind not only through his words but through formatting. He’s able to convey two messages, one being an intimate confession of love and the other being about the life he carries in his heart.