all ignorance toboggans into know
and trudges up to ignorance again:
but winter's not forever,even snow
melts;and if spring should spoil the game,what then?

all history's a winter sport or three:
but were it five,i'd still insist that all
history is too small for even me;
for me and you,exceedingly too small.

Swoop(shrill collective myth)into thy grave
merely to toil the scale to shrillerness
per every madge and mabel dick and dave
—tomorrow is our permanent address

and there they'll scarcely find us(if they do,
we'll move away still further:into now

"all ignorance toboggans into know" was published as poem number XXXIX in 1 x 1 [One Times One] (1944). Perhaps the most memorable line is

tomorrow is our permanent address
 

Unlike some of Cummings' other poetry, this one depends on meaning. What does it mean? An astute Cummings reader can guess at most of it, and probably guess right. It was 1944, a "winter" of history - a World War, all the state organs are organized to produce "collective shrillness."

But all that is not important:

history is too small for even me;
for me and you,exceedingly too small.

Cummings seems to be playing on his favorite themes again: knowledge is not wisdom, science and logic destroy love. "Our love," he is perhaps telling his love, "is more important than history" and so we shall move beyond it.

E. E. Cummings' (1894 - 1962) writing and approach represented a new departure in poetry. He first flourished in the intellectually innovative and daring world of the 1920s. His work has never been fully appreciated by critics, but has an avid following among both connoisseurs and "ordinary" folk, because his poems touch people directly, especially young people.

The modern era was born in the 1920s, out of the ruins and desolation of World War I. The war smashed more than cities and people. It smashed Victorian conventions and class distinctions. Suddenly, people were not afraid to speak and write about sex as something enjoyable and beautiful. This was the era of James Joyce's Ulysses and Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, but also, especially in America, the era of Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night." A time of daring and romance in literature.

His poetry is informed by his unique philosophy of life and art. Cummings would laugh at most of the pedantic and trite dissections of his work by "objective" critics. Cummings had nothing against science and logic, but he didn't think it applied to feelings. He was intensely against regimentation and conventional thinking. His rebellion and unconventionality were symbolized superficially by his refusal to use capital letters in his poems, but they went far beyond that.

Typography and layout of the poem were often very important to Cummings, who was also an artist. Please note that we will not always be able to be faithful to the original typography, because of limitations of the medium. Like some other modern poets, ee cummings' often conveyed images and feelings by indirect allusions that would make readers see the images and feel the feelings he was feeling, though he also made skilful use of poetic conventions. He also had the gift of making the English language do unexpected and wondrous  things, a gift that has made great poetry since the time of Shakespeare and before.