101 Poems, Number 95

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

95: “anyone lived in a pretty how town,” 1940, by E. E. Cummings (1894–1962)

Back in my student teaching days

At West Geauga High,

I turned a lit-book page and saw

This poem—my, oh my!

I didn’t understand a thing—

My students looked at me.

I said, “Let’s read this Cummings’ thing—

But do it silently.”

They read—or so it seemed they did.

And I then read aloud.

Moved on and feared all questions, for

I was completely cowed.

The years went on—but I could not

Forget that day in class

When I was baffled by those words

And acted like an ass.

And so I memorized the thing,

And working through the lines,

I saw what Cummings was about—
Much truth in tangled vines.

And so it is with many things:

You work—and then you’ve learned.

And these are things more precious than

Whatever else you’ve earned.

Link to poem.