Poetry Ch. 7 POUI (5)

"next to of course god, america i"

Yes, I am tackling the intimidating poem with no punctuation or capitilization. (Go me!) Anyways, "next to of course god america i" by e.e. cummings is a very difficult poem. (i am curious as to why the periods after the e's in cummings' name required punctuation by capitalization was not necessary.) So the purpose of the lack of capitalization and punctuation seems to me to have the purpose of describing the speaker. When I read the poem, I pictured the speaker as some drunk old man at a bar slurring his sentences together and lacking emphasis in his words. The glass of water threw this theory a curve ball, but I stand by it because a) he could be sobering up after a long night, or b) it's not really water.
Another thing I noticed was that the basic ideas in the poem was the Star Spangled Banner, the beginning of America, and war. These three things fit together if it is Revolutionary War time. This also makes sense in light of the second to last line of the poem when liberty is mentioned. So I figure that the setting is around that era. I see the basic story like this: the speaker is recalling the time when men were risking their lives at war for America and all of the civilians were gung ho for America. I think that the speaker and Cummings do not admire the men for this. On the contrary, I think that they are calling the men dumb for not even thinking about what they are getting themselves into and they could all die and we will have no voice. This poem is a bit confusing without punctuation and capitalization, but once one gets over the initial shock, it is pretty easy to add one's own punctuation where one sees fit. Chances are one will get some of it right and at least somewhat understand the message. (By the way, I considered writing this whole blog with no capitalization or punctuation to better get a feel for Cummings' purpose, but I decided against it for your own best interest.