By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What do we call this short E. E. Cummings masterpiece? ‘l(a’, after its first line? ‘loneliness (a leaf falls)’? But that violates the careful syntax of Cummings’ own poem. ‘a leaf falls on loneliness’? But that separates the two things that need to be kept together. ‘l(a leaf falls)oneliness’ then?
But that loses the spacing and line endings that make E. E. Cummings’ poem so distinctive and meditative, turning its delicate verse structure into a piece of prose, and prose verging on the prosaic.