Love: Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings [Hardcover]

E. E. Cummings (Author), Christopher Myers (Author), Christopher Myers (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 1 and up | Grade Level: P and up

E. E. Cummings, one of the most famous poets of all time, is known for his concise, often sassy poems that speak right to the heart. Illuminated through Caldecott Honor Illustrator Christopher Myers's electrifying artwork, E. E. Cummings' Love: Selected Poems is filled with humor, feeling, and romance for young teens and adults. From "the moon is hiding in her hair" to "may i feel, said he," this book fulfills the Cummings collector's ultimate wishes, and is the perfect gift for anyone interested in the magic and romance entrenched in the language of love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this astonishing picture book about sensual love, Myers (Black Cat) combines evocative photographs of people and paintings to create collages that match the startling imagery in cummings's poems. Focusing primarily on the kind of breathless love for which "feeling is first," and a lover can render "death and forever with each breathing," the intense poems are made even more powerful by Myers's brilliant artwork. Each illustration translates the emotions behind cummings's quicksilver metaphors into unforgettable visual imagery. A description of the separation of lovers that "whittles life to eternity/ —after which our separating selves become museums/ filled with skillfully stuffed memories" takes visual form with an arresting image of a person's bare back and shoulders covered with butterflies. Myers unifies the book thematically with repeating images. "Birds who are the secret of living" appear in one poem, escaping a door that covers a young man's heart; and in another, creamy doves circle a nude woman to "cover her briefness in singing/ close her with intricate faint birds." However, despite its formatting as a picture book and its listing as appropriate for "all ages," the book's emphasis upon erotic love makes it more suitable for sophisticated teens and adults than for children—especially the inclusion of a bantering seduction poem—"but it's life said he/ but your wife said she/ .../ (cccome? said he/ ummm said she)." All ages. (Dec.)
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From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–Myers has assembled a collection of 19 love poems that reflects cummings at his playful, inventive best. They include since feeling is first, somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond, and love our so right/is,all. Difficult and challenging in format, they reward careful readers with metaphysical insight. Myers's artful photographic images on painted backgrounds accompany the selections. The poem we love each other very dearly is illustrated with a photo of a woman's face torn in half and arranged along with the text across two pages. Unfortunately, not all of the visual interpretations match cummings's elusive imagery. For the splendid open your heart:/i'll give you a treasure/of tiniest world/a piece of forever with, the artist crafts an innocuous image of a young man with a bit of sky inserted into his open mouth. The fairly adult connotations of may i feel said he/(i'll squeal said she are disconcertingly paired with two fresh-faced teens. Myers's attempt to make these poems accessible to a new generation is admirable, but these lovely and challenging works defy easy definitions.–Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 1 and up
  
• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Jump At The Sun (December 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786807962
• ISBN-13: 978-0786807963
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 9.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,039,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

E. E. Cummings (1894-1962) was among the most influential, widely read, and revered modernist poets. His many awards included an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and the Bollingen Prize. Among his many volumes are The Enormous Room and Tulips & Chimneys.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars bad visual art, March 11, 2007

By 

Riza Emrah Akkan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love: Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings (Hardcover)

the poems were great but the pictures are rather distracting
and have nothing to do with love what-so-ever

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Never arrived, December 15, 2009

By 

IslandDreamer (Rancho Cordova, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Love: Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings (Hardcover)

I have purchased many books from Amazon vendors and I love that it is so easy to do from my own home. This is the first and only time that I have been burned on a purchase. The book never arrived. I wrote to the vendor twice and I also wrote to Amazon but I never received a response or a refund. I know that the poems are great, that is why I ordered the book to give as a gift but the bookseller, jersey.xray, is not realible.