[as freedom is a breakfastfood] — E. E. Cummings
1 as freedom is a breakfastfood
2 or truth can live with right and wrong
3 or molehills are from mountains made
4 —long enough and just so long
5 will being pay the rent of seem
6 and genius please the talentgang
7 and water most encourage flame
8 as hatracks into peachtrees grow
9 or hopes dance best on bald men’s hair
10 and every finger is a toe
11 and any courage is a fear
12 —long enough and just so long
13 will the impure think all things pure
14 and hornets wail by children stung
15 or as the seeing are the blind
16 and robins never welcome spring
17 nor flatfolk prove their world is round
18 nor dingsters die at break of dong
19 and common’s rare and millstones float
20 —long enough and just so long
21 tomorrow will not be too late
22 worms are the words but joy’s the voice
23 down shall go which and up come who
24 breasts will be breasts thighs will be thighs
25 deeds cannot dream what dreams can do
26 —time is a tree(this life one leaf)
27 but love is the sky and i am for you
28 just so long and long enough
My first read of [as freedom is a breakfastfood] by E.E. Cummings left me confused and with many questions. The poem begins with a metaphor, comparing the concept of freedom to a breakfastfood. As I don’t typically feel overcome with a sense of freedom as I make eggs in the morning, this comparison as well as the other Cummings proceeded to make really stumped me. The poem also offered no typical punctuation; it exists as a continuous stream between stanzas, only interrupted by dashes and parentheses. Finally, Cummings interrupts the first three stanzas with the phrase “long enough and just so long” (4) before concluding the poem by reversing the phrase to “just so long and long enough” (28) for reasons that were beyond me. In order to better understand the poem, I decided that I needed to understand the purpose of metaphor, punctuation (or lack thereof), and the phrase “long enough and just so long”.
Upon finishing my second reading, the comparisons that Cummings made still puzzled me. After a third and fourth run through, I started to get frustrated, everything seemed backwards and contradictory. Then it dawned on me, maybe that was just it: maybe these statements exist not individually but collectively, their meanings come from looking at them as a whole. After taking this perspective, things began to clear up. The first three stanzas are largely made up of contradictions: the idea that “water most encourage flame” (7) opposes how water extinguishes fires in reality; the idea that “any courage is a fear” (11) opposes how we see courage as the lack of fear; the idea that “robins never welcome spring” (16) opposes how I typically associate seeing robins as a sign of the return of Spring. This reversal exists only in the poem’s first three stanzas, the last is more straightforward in its assertions. This grouping of the first three stanzas being the opposite of the fourth follows the same pattern as the use of “long enough and just so long”. As this phrase is accompanied by the poem’s only punctuation, I realized that the answer to all of my questions was in making sense of the shift between the third and fourth stanzas.
As I continued to read the poem, I stumbled upon two more clues that started to make the answers to my questions feel more in reach. First, while numbering the lines in the poem for this essay, I saw that “long enough and just so long” creeps closer to the bottom of the stanza each time it is repeated. Second, by reading out l discovered that the tone of the last stanza seems distinctly positive and hopeful. The way that the line moves down gives a build up that raises a sense of tension within the poem. Since the last stanza is the opposite of the previous three, this means their tones were negative in comparison. To relate these ideas, I went where the tension was building to, the shift created by the last line of the third stanza: “tomorrow will not be too late” (21). Instead of a collection of unrelated ideas, I realized that the first three stanzas represent a look at the present. In life, things can be jumbled, backwards and unpredictable, just like the comparisons Cummings makes and the lack of punctuation shows how unstructured life can really be. Despite this, there is a sense of hope, that something will fix or transcend how upside down life can feel. What that something is had been staring me in the face at the end of each reading (like a game of Jeopardy, I had the answer, just not the question): love. As Cummings concludes “but love is the sky and i am for you just so long and long enough” (27-28) love is revealed as the source of hope that the poem has been building to and has the power to turn the repetition of “long enough and just so long” on its head. Despite being “just so long”, love is “the sky”: endless and above all else. Unlike the previous contradictions, this one makes sense. Love can be powerful and immense despite its fleeting nature.
Even after coming to these realizations about this poem, I still have plenty of unanswered questions. Freedom and breakfastfood aren’t opposites, so what are they? What is a talentgang? Why does Cummings reference breasts and thighs in the final stanza? So far, through embracing my confusion, I have been able to answer the questions I began with and I am sure that by continuing to do this, I will make sense of any more that may arise.
Owen, I really appreciate your analysis of this poem. Upon reading it, I was also incredibly confused, as I am with many poems from E.E.Cummings before I dive deep into them. I thought it was really interesting that you chose to look at the poem collectively instead of individually, but I think that was a good strategy. I tend to get very focused on analyzing single parts of poems and connecting them to a meaning, and I often will jump to conclusions after only looking at one section. I also liked that you focused your analysis on discovering contradictions. This is one of the hardest things for me to do, since contradicting elements tend to lead to more confusion. However, as you have proved, working through that contradicting confusion leads to finding meaning, which of itself, is a contradiction.
Hello Owen,
I really enjoyed reading your difficulty essay on E.E. Cummings’ [as freedom is a breakfastfood]. Much like yourself, I finished my first reading of my own poem (Edgar Allen Poe’s “A Dream within a Dream”) and was left with utter confusion. I think that with certain poems, especially some of the more challenging poems that we have been looking at in class, it is ultimately normal to finish a first read and feel that you have no idea what you just read. The important thing is to recognize whether or not that confusion was something the author intended for readers to experience, and I think you did a great job realizing and addressing the answer to this question with regards to your poem in your essay. When I read your poem prior to reading your essay, I noticed the repetition of the line “long enough and just so long”, but the reversal in the final stanza completely slipped through my observations. It sounds like taking a bigger picture look at the confusions you had was entirely helpful not only when making this observation, but also in pulling meaning from the shift which occurred between stanzas three and four. You did a great job of demonstrating your reading comprehension process in this essay, and I encourage you to do some more research or probing into those questions you still have unanswered in your concluding paragraph.
Owen, I’m definitely comforted that it also takes you more than 4 reads to understand some of these poems. I too was taken aback by the first line of the poem, because I had no idea how breakfast and freedom could be related. As I read on, I continued to question all of the seemingly random contradictions that Cummings listed, confused by their thematic meaning. However, after reading your realization about the shift between the third and fourth stanzas, I went back to try and determine this meaning myself. To me, it seemed like the last stanza was the speaker coming back to reality after a mental breakdown or daydream. I also thought your conclusion about love and the line “long enough and just so long” was insightful and important. Great analysis!
Owen–as I have said to many of your classmates, I admire your EE Cumming selection! He’s so tough! I have never read this poem before, and I appreciated the insight of your approach. The difficulty essay is so revealing as it takes us through your thought process, which is fascinating. The title itself is so intriguing. Excellent work!