I am trying to figure out the meaning of this poem. by ee cummings. I think it's supposed to be two men in a bar in New York discussing WWII.
I've read this over and over but I"m still stuck on the 2nd & 3rd stanzas. Or I may have the whole thing wrong. If you have any ideas, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

ygUDuh

ydoan
yunnuhstan


ydoan o
yunnuhstand dem
yguduh ged


yunnuhstan dem doidee
yguduh ged riduh
ydoan o nudn


LISN bud LISN


dem
gud
am


lidl yelluh bas
tuds weer goin


duhSIVILEYEzum



Here is what I have so far... please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

"You gotta?"

"Why don't you understand?

I don't know. -
Why understand them?
you gotta get---?

------?-----?-----?
You gotta get ridda
I don't know nothing.

LISSTEN BUDDY, LISTEN
them goddam little
yellow bastards we're going

to civilize them

I'm still stuck on a few lines. If you have any help, or any other futher analysis that would be greatly appreciated. I'm looking for a fun/ alternative poem to teach to break up the constant hunt for the poetic devices but still different from the rhyming Shell Silverstein stuff they're used to. (they're 9th graders). I'm still debating if this one is appropriate b/c of the language. Anyways, if you have any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated! :-)

yunnuhstan dem doidee

I would say that's 'You understand, they're dirty

pam

I agree it's two men conversing, mostly interrupting each other. The dialect seems to be a Noo Joisey imitation. My take:

You gotta

You don't
You understand

You don't know
You understand them
You gotta get

You understand them dirty
You gotta get rid of
You don't know nothin'

LISTEN Bud LISTEN

them
god-
dam

little yellow bas-
tards we're goin'
to CIVILISE 'em.

If this really is e e cummings and not a parody, it must be one of the few times he used upper case. I could be wrong, but the attitude of the final speaker doesn't sound like from WWII in the Pacific. More like from Korea or Vietnam.



Post Edited (11-16-04 15:20)

thanks for all your help! :-)

Joy

It is cummings. I've always fancied it was Viet Nam he was talking about.

I can't remember if it's WWII or Vietnam, but it's definitely anti-war.
It's also New Jersey, and it's definitely ee cummings.
It's not a conversation though, it's an immitation of one drunken man, rambling incoherently.

write it out as one continuous sentence, and you'll see what I mean.

you don't...y'understand...you don't know...you understand, them's...you've got to get... you understand them's dirty.. you got to get rid of...you don't know nothing... LISTEN bud, LISTEN... them god-damn little yellow bastards, we're gonna CIVILISE them.

Guest, a great thing about poetry is that poems often mean different things to different readers. Ultimately each reader is entitled to his/her own interpretation.

You may interpret this Cummings poem as 'anti-war', and that's fine, but I suggest you go too far in asserting that it is 'definitely' that. You are discounting other possible interpretations. I can't find anything in the poem that promotes pacificism, or raises the issue whether whichever war it was was a worthy enterprise or not. It seems more like reportage of the incoherent ideas of some presumably inebriated racist nobody. If it's anti-anything, I'd say it's satirising characters like that who rant about civilising others but show no signs of being civilised themselves. For Cummings the poem may just have been an experiment with word forms to see how few it took to achieve effective reportage.

Guest, a great thing about poetry is that poems often mean different things to different readers. Ultimately each reader is entitled to his/her own interpretation.

You may interpret this Cummings poem as 'anti-war', and that's fine, but I suggest you go too far in asserting that it is 'definitely' that. You are discounting other possible interpretations. I can't find anything in the poem that promotes pacificism, or raises the issue whether whichever war it was was a worthy enterprise or not. It seems more like reportage of the incoherent ideas of some racist nobody. If it's anti-anything, I'd say it's satirising characters like that who rant about civilising others but show no signs of being civilised themselves. For Cummings the poem may just have been an experiment with word forms to see how few it took to evoke the content and the accent.

I agree with you that the words in the poem might be those of just one man, but isn't it equally possible to interpret them as an overhead conversation between two? I find the latter interpretation more convincing because of all the stops and starts, which suggest interruptions, and the lines

'ydoan o nudn'
and
'LISN bud LISN'

The speaker there appears to be talking to someone.

Ian



Post Edited (02-03-05 08:52)

Hey, ive been studying this poem recently for exams, and was looking around to see if i could find any other good perpectives on it....

what i and the rest of my set have come up with is that it is a criticism of american society, ironically written by E. E. Cummings (being an american himself), implying that they believe they control almost everything. the fact that an american wrote this may suggest society/class stereotypes, as not all americans must think this way. plus it is written in the vernacular, in a very strong american dialect, which brings out the americaness by deliberately distorting the language, and suggesting that it may be the lower class of american society who believe this.

the inability of the man to complete a full sentence, speaking in a very stilted manner, may show his frustration and desperation of trying to persuade another (demonstrated by the line 'LISN bud LISN' - the use of capitals shows the emphasis on the word, and the need the man feels to be listened to), and his point of view is not being considered (again suggesting that not all americans held the same view to his...) .

Cummings also writes in a way that emphasises the crudeness and ignorance of the american wanting to civilise the others (we believe they are either the koreans or the vietnamese - with the line 'lidl yelluh bas / tuds'), adding the irony that in fact is is the man who needs to civilise himself, rather than anyone else.

hope that may help....

alice