Buffalo Bill's By Ee Cummings
In 1920, E.E. Cummings published the poem “Buffalo Bill’s”. This was only 3 years after William Cody (better known as Buffalo Bill) had died, making this poem like a tribute to Cody. The poem did praise Cody in multiple ways but Cummings also questioned if he really did anything heroic. Cummings was not known to have any sort of hatred towards Buffalo Bill, but he obviously did not respect him as much as any other person of his time would have. E.E. Cummings was born on October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He starting writing poems at about 10 years old. Cummings attended Harvard University and received both his BA and MA in 1915 and 1916 respectively. In 1917, Cummings volunteered to be an Ambulance driver in the first World War
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It is a free verse shape poem about the Wild West stage performer Buffalo Bill Cody. The poem has no rhyme or rhyme scheme, and it is a narrative that Cummings is telling about Buffalo Bill’s death. The syllables per line are 4-2-3-7-3-12-2-6-7-8-3, making the poem have not really have any form of rhythm, but in line 6 there are two 5 syllable words that are conjoined, creating a little rhythm in the poem. The poem is a shape poem, though. It is a symbol of the stages of someone’s life (most likely Buffalo Bill’s), it starts out very small (birth), then gradually gets larger until the middle (the late 20’s, where a person is at their physical and mental peak) and then eventually it gets back to small (the death of someone) and the last word of the poem is also the word death, which Cummings might have done on purpose to symbolize that death is the last thing a person experiences. The poem has alliteration in lines 4 and 5 with “watersmooth-silver /stallion” (Cummings). The same lines also creates imagery for the reader about the horse that Buffalo Bill rode. The mood of the poem changes from excitement and the praising of Buffalo Bill, so sort of an eerie ending with the words “How do you like your blue-eyed boy / mister death” (Cummings 10-11). Death is never a good thing, so the reader loses all of the excitement that Cummings built up in the previous lines. The tone is very similar to the mood, Cummings is praising
It is a free verse shape poem about the Wild West stage performer Buffalo Bill Cody. The poem has no rhyme or rhyme scheme, and it is a narrative that Cummings is telling about Buffalo Bill’s death. The syllables per line are 4-2-3-7-3-12-2-6-7-8-3, making the poem have not really have any form of rhythm, but in line 6 there are two 5 syllable words that are conjoined, creating a little rhythm in the poem. The poem is a shape poem, though. It is a symbol of the stages of someone’s life (most likely Buffalo Bill’s), it starts out very small (birth), then gradually gets larger until the middle (the late 20’s, where a person is at their physical and mental peak) and then eventually it gets back to small (the death of someone) and the last word of the poem is also the word death, which Cummings might have done on purpose to symbolize that death is the last thing a person experiences. The poem has alliteration in lines 4 and 5 with “watersmooth-silver /stallion” (Cummings). The same lines also creates imagery for the reader about the horse that Buffalo Bill rode. The mood of the poem changes from excitement and the praising of Buffalo Bill, so sort of an eerie ending with the words “How do you like your blue-eyed boy / mister death” (Cummings 10-11). Death is never a good thing, so the reader loses all of the excitement that Cummings built up in the previous lines. The tone is very similar to the mood, Cummings is praising