Buffalo Bill's/ defunct

e e cummings

Buffalo Bill's
        defunct
               who used to
               ride a watersmooth-silver
                                        stallion
        and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                                         Jesus
        he was a handsome man
                             and what i want to know is
        how do you like your blueeyed boy
        Mister Death

Commentary

Sorry people - somehow I postponed instead of sending this yesterday.

Guest poem sent in by Pavithra Krishnan

cummings was perhaps one of the first poets to play around with the visual impact of poetry on paper. with his airy disregard for the upper case alphabet,

daring line arrangements

andunusualpunctuation—- cummings ran the
Experimenter’s risk of being labelled a gimmicks-guy. ‘Buffalo Bill ‘ is one of cummings’ better known pieces. a tribute to the dead cowboy and folk legend, this poem is typical cummings. i love the way he gives you this man’s life in a few deceptively casual pen strokes, the way his spacebar stops working just when he needs that non-stop effect, the way he uses blank space to hold awe,reverence- and muted grief. the direct address at the end is poignant. perfect.

— Pavithra Krishnan

The Wondering Minstrels, poem #139 · 4 July 1999

Guest poem submitted by Pavithra Krishnan

Fair use

Show 4 commentsHide comments

From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.

Michael McClain · 4 February 2000

It would be such a sad day, indeed, when such a tribute were cut from the school board’s approved curriculum for the vain use of the word Jesus. Even EE capitalized it. GeeWhiz (Jesus?) Jeeeze (Jesus?) Jeeperz (Jesus?)
May we all span such words for the impact of the whole…Mike McClain

SnolanRealtor · 5 December 2005

I read this once on stage in college, ca.1974, and it never left me. As I grew older, these words grew stronger. Ahh…my mortality slips into view. But I remembered it as …fair-haired boy…

Thanks for the memories.

SPN

John Gascoyne · 28 February 2007

Yep - it was …fair-haired boy… when the piece hit me over the head in the 60’s at Colorado State Univesity.

Good catch.

johng

Peter Glick · 6 March 2008

We read this on day one in English 101 (1957). No one got it. Now it means so much. Bill is “defunct” because he was so much more than a man; he was an idea, an ideal, a movement, an era. A part of America is defunct; a piece of our soul and our innocence is gone. Oh to believe again in watersmooth-silver stallions. Mr. Death bit off more than he could chew.

Peter S. Glick