Holds Upon Happiness

I enjoy E. E. Cummings’ poetry because it makes very little sense and yet all the sense in the world. His poetry was described as avant-garde and experimental. He used language in ways he wanted even if it went against all linguistic rules. He is described as “an unabashed lyricist, a modern cavalier love poet.” I have to read his poems several times but they are worth the effort. somewhere i have never travelled. gladly beyondany experience, your eyes have their silence:in you most frail gesture are things which enclose me,or which i cannot touch because they are too nearyour slightest look easily will unclose methough i have closed myself…

John Clare was an English poet who lived from 1793-1864. He was the son of a farm laborer and became an agricultural laborer himself while still very young. He also worked as a potboy at an inn, a gardener, a lime burner, and joined the militia. He offered his poems to a local bookseller to earn money to prevent his parent’s eviction. The bookseller sent the poems to the publishers of Keat’s poetry. His poems were published to high praise. Clare dealt with mental health issues and was committed to an asylum and at various times believed he was Byron and Shakespeare. He ended up spending the rest of his…