"anyone lived in a pretty how town" is a poem written by

E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...

. First published in

1940 A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January *January ...

, the poem details the lives of residents in a nameless town. Like much of Cummings's work, the poem is actually untitled, so critics use the first line to refer to the poem. Cummings often wrote in a manner that did not follow standard English

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

and

punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...

. This style is evident in the poem's first line, which is written in all lowercase letters and contains the unlikely phrase "pretty how town". The poem inspired a short film of the same name by

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairm ...

Style

In the poem, Cummings states the lines, "spring summer autumn winter", (3) and "sun moon stars rain", (8) multiple times. In reiterating these lines he changes the order of the seasons, "autumn winter spring summer", (11) and "stars rain sun moon", (21).

References

External links

Full text of the poem at Poets.org
{{E. E. Cummings 1940 poems Poetry by E. E. Cummings Poems adapted into films American poems Modernist poems