i Thank You God

i thank You God by e.e.cummings
In ‘i thank You God’ cummings expresses his spiritual rebirth with the renewal of how he sees the world, as if for the first time.
The first instance of his playing with punctuation and grammar appears in the title and first line.
He lowercases "i" and capitalises "You" to show the difference between the speaker's view of himself and God, placing God above the speaker. The line draws from Cummings' perception of
God in his later years of life, when he believed that God was above all things, and so he applied this style of punctuation to the rest of the poem. Then, using poetic license, Cummings hides the speaker's words that speak of himself or his own thoughts behind parentheses as if they are a thought or aside, and then keeps the worshipful lines out in the open.
Line after line, the words dance to the rhythm of the poem’s tone of rebirth. ‘The gay, great, happening, illimitably earth’ leaps with alliteration and its rhtyhm conveys an eventful, almost tangible energy. The assonance in ‘leaping greenly spirits of trees’ shares the same spirit while giving an aura of freshness and vitality to the entire poem. Words are placed and adjusted to the rhythm of the line to emphasise specific syllables or words. Subsequently, the tempo and rhythm slow down in the reflective sections, as if to let the speaker breathe in order to absorb the world.
Cummings uses the words ‘natural’, ‘infinite’ and ‘yes’ to describe God and nature, shifting between the literal and metaphorical meanings of the words. ‘Natural’ and ‘infinite’ are direct words which describe God but ‘yes’ gives a sense of everything as right, true and good in the cosmos. In the third line, the ‘yes’ is contrasted with the ‘no of all nothing’ from which the ‘yes’ emanates against all odds to give a new birth to the speaker. In fact, the speaker calls the day
‘the birthday of life and of love and of wings’, representing his new life, love, and freedom in
Christ.
Cummings wrote this poem in his late years of life, after he returned to his father, a pastor, after rebelling against him for decades since his years at Harvard. He took up a perception of God as an ultimate Presence that each soul will stand before. Cummings attempts to encapsulate God’s greatness and benevolence in the word ‘yes’ for lack of a better term, and he calls evil ‘no’ since he finds it utterly repulsive. The poem also reflects the idea that God is one with nature, so experiencing nature is experiencing God.
Cummings brings every element together to illustrate God's redemption of him. Through a symbolic rebirth, the speaker becomes a child once more. In this childlike state he is in love with
God and the world, excited yet reflective, and humbly praising a universal God. Through his renewed senses, the poet feels the amazing wonder of God and says, ‘Now the ears of my ears awake, and the eyes of my eyes are opened’.

Edited by S. Saliba – The Archbishop’s Seminary