E.E. Cummings Month: “Buffalo Bill’s”

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

(E.E. Cummings, “Buffalo Bill’s,” 1920.)

via

Well, how do you, Mr. Death.

This is one of several Cummings poems first published in The Dial in 1920. A very early example of his fascination with unusual forms, “Buffalo Bill’s” use of whitespace in the poem is in part influenced by Pablo Picasso, who Cummings met in Paris after serving time in France on a trumped up charge of being a spy during the Great War (total folklore — he was a volunteer ambulance driver and was guilty of nothing more than being an outspoken critic of war, violence, and suffering in general). Cummings was also a painter and was inspired by Picasso’s formalistic experiments in cubism: he carried the philosophy forward in to his writing as well.

Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: 19 Man

Last year my friendoh’s rad son came up with a superhero who was made out of number 19s and was named, appropriately, “19 Man.” That drawing has been lost to time so he made me a new one.

19 Man has a sidekick and a nemesis who has his own sidekick, and they all have kickass pets. Please click to enlarge and enjoy the awesome creativity. I especially like Mustache Dog — the very combination of the words of his name is something like “cellar door” or “fiddlesticks;” it pleases, yes?

I think I’ll start including some of my daughter’s work in liberated negative space as well. Like Picasso said, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

Daily Batman: Colors

“Light Night” via fyeahbatman on the tumblr.

“Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.”

(Pablo Picasso)

qtd by Zervos, Christian. “Conversation avec Picasso.” Cahiers d’Art Paris ed. Vol. X, 7-10 (1935): 173-178. Transl. by Myfanwy Evans for Alfred H. Barr’s Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art (New York: MoMA press, 1946).