somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

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.

Somewhere i have never travelled was first published by Cummings in the book, ViVa in 1931. At the time, Cummings had been married to Anne Barton for two years. They were divorced a year later. It is not clear that she is the subject of the poem, or that he is the supposed narrator.

The poem begins:

somewhere i have never travelled

The "travel" is a metaphor of course for emotional "traveling."

When you read:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

what do you think about?

Doesn't everyone have things  that are too close and therefore too secret, to "touch?"

Consider  "your eyes have their silence." Of course, eyes don't talk, but they do talk in poetic convention, and Cummings, for all his unconventionality, uses it.

Notice how he alludes to flowers before he mentions anything about them "

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
that was the allusion. Here is the explicit mention:

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
But enough! We will not understand the art behind the Mona Lisa by doing a spectral analysis of the paint composition, and we will not understand the poetry of ee cummings by reading a long winded "analysis."