At first glance, this unnamed, but ref
erred to as 2 Little Whos, poem by E.E. Cummings seems to be a jumble of loosely related words and phrases with weir formatting and punctuation. Yet, there is a meaning behind every poem, but this one is especially hard to pick apart to find that meaning. Cummings’ use of parenthesis, misplacement of words, and lack of punctuation which makes the understanding of 2 Little Whos much more difficult.
In many of Cummings poems, he uses parenthesis to create a second narrative, or even separate poem, within the original poem. In the case of 2 Little Whos, Cummings uses the parenthesis to add “irrelevant” information to the poem. By “irrelevant” I mean that the poem would flow and function without the lines in parenthesis, but the poem loses meaning and context if read without those lines.
Without parentheses:
2 little whos
under are this
wonderful tree
smiling stand
now and here
who and who
Only parentheses:
(all realms of where
and when beyond)
(far from a grown
-up i&you-
ful world of known)
(2 little ams
and over them this aflame with dreams
incredible is)
The poem can still be understood both ways, but much of the detail and mass of the poem is gone. It is only when looking at them separately, then connecting them, and finally merging their meaning in respect to placement can we find a true understanding of the poem. The difficulty in understanding this poem in respect to the parentheses is that you must analyze the same poem as if it were two different poems. You can’t let either segment influence your interpretation of the other as well. If they end up contradicting each other, that should be taken into consideration. If one segment influences the other you may be swayed to connect them rather than see the contradictions. This may end up changing your entire interpretation of the poem. But with this extra step of having two separate segments in the same poem, Cummings is able to more easily display his intentions with the poem, and creates more room for interpretation.
Another Cummings classic is misplacing words throughout the poem. For example, all the words in line three are jumbled around. To make more sense of this we can put them in the correct order. So instead of “under are this” it becomes “are under this.” This makes the poem make more sense grammatically and thus makes interpretation easier. We can continue to correct Cummings grammar on lines five, ten, fifteen, and sixteen. Changing the order of words in a poem may seem counterintuitive, but with a poet like Cummings it is a necessary step. The meaning of each altered line won’t change drastically, and will ultimately make the poem easier to understand in its entirety. But this does come with a caution. The jumbling of words could have meaning and you must be careful when altering them. If you can decipher the meaning of a line or stanza, and altering where the words are makes it easier and keeps the same meaning, then this is best practice. But if altering the order of words changes the meaning then it is only going to further misconstrue your interpretations of the poem. This is a hard strategy to know when to use, but makes for easier readings if done correctly.
Lastly, the lack of punctuation in 2 Little Whos makes the path to a more right interpretation very difficult. Punctuation in poetry is an indicator of emphasis, and gives a clearer picture of what is really happening. Punctuation like question marks can be used to identify the speaker’s conflict or their solution. Besides for the parentheses, which aren’t used in the proper way, there is zero punctuation in 2 Little Whos. This makes the shifts in tone and theme much harder to identify because it is read as one stream of consciousness. There is no real way to get around this difficulty. Adding new punctuation will throw off the whole meaning of the poem and would be counterintuitive. You must find a way to understand why Cummings made the choice to disclude punctuation. One way of interpreting this choice is that this is just a stream of consciousness. The speaker is explaining what comes to his mind and that is why there is no punctuation. This aspect of 2 Little Whos is one of the most difficult things Cummings wrote into the poem.
In conclusion, Cummings used many different stylistic choices in 2 Little Whos that make the poem difficult to understand. The use of parentheses, misplaced words, and lack of punctuation layer on each other to make the poem difficult to understand. There are ways around these difficulties that help further your interpretation. The overall meaning of this poem can be hard to come by if you do not understand the complexities of Cummings writing style.
Hi Quinn! I love the poem you chose for your difficulty essay because I have absolutely no clue what it means and struggled a lot trying to read it. It is by far the most confusing poem I’ve read. When I first looked at it, I could tell Cummings was doing some weird stuff in the poem and upon further reading, it really confused me. I instantly noticed the parenthesis and the weirdly-worded lines, but I actually didn’t catch the lack of punctuation on first read through. As you mentioned, all of the parenthesis make the poem a lot harder to understand if the reader is trying to interpret the whole poem by itself. I loved how you typed out the poem without parentheses and with because it allowed me to better grasp the two poems intertwined in one. Throughout your analysis, I love how you mention what makes the poem difficult to read—the parenthesis, wording, and lack of punctuation. But you also give the reader suggestions which I thought was interesting. Everyone reads poems in their own way, that’s exactly what we’re learning to do with our reading journals, and suggestions can definitely help some people. Your main suggestion of rewording some lines might be beneficial to understand the poem in a more structured, comprehensive way, but I do think that takes away from the true meaning and message the poet is trying to convey. As we’ve explored in class and through my own explication essay, how the poet writes and all of the techniques a poet uses greatly impact the meaning of the poem. Thus, rearranging words risks taking away that deeper meaning from the reader. You address this a bit, but I wanted to touch on it a bit more. Overall, great analysis and I love how you formatted your essay!
Hey Quinn, something that I found super insightful about your analysis of “2 little whos” is your specific focus on Cumming’s unorthodox writing conventions. Initially when looking at poems, I often prioritize the diction, symbolism, metaphors, imagery, alliterations, anaphoras, and other forms of figurative language—leaving important writing stylistic choices in punctuation, word placement, and other conventions under-analyzed. This poem, just by looking at the writing conventions, is able to receive a lot of meaning as you pointed out. I couldn’t help but make some claims about the purpose of the irregular conventions you highlighted in your Difficulty Essay:
The virtually opposite perspectives of the parenthesis and non-parenthesis portions of the piece serve to spotlight the dichotomy between the lives of the 2 little whos (in areas without parenthesis) and the lives of the audience (in areas with parenthesis). Moreover, the mushing together of these two disparate perspectives into stanzas with both parenthesis and non-parenthesis parts create a sense of togetherness, similarity between the two unkown whos and the reader; that maybe the reader is more like the little whos than they think. Additionally, the lack of punctuation that you pointed out could actually represent the lack of a story being told. The steam of consciousness that you hypothesized the lack of punctuation was creating could be interpreted as the unfiltered characteristics of the present moment in reality. How this poem is not fiction, not an idealistic story, but instead about reality. That in reality, the audience is a lot like the 2 little whos in ability to enjoy themselves.