The American poet Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962) presented romantic attitudes in technically experimental verse. His poems are not only ideas but crafted physical objects which, in their nonlogical structure, grant fresh perspectives into reality.

In his publications E. E. Cummings always gave his name in lowercase letters without punctuation (e e cummings); this was part of his concern for the typography, syntax, and visual form of his poetry. He worked in the Emersonian tradition of romantic transcendentalism, which encouraged experimentation, and may have been influenced also by Walt Whitman, the poet that Ralph Waldo Emerson had personally encouraged.

Born in Cambridge, Mass., on Oct. 14, 1894, of a prominent academic and ministerial family, E. E. Cummings grew up in the company of such family friends as the philosophers William James and Josiah Royce. Had he lived in Emerson's time, he too might have been described as a "Boston Brahmin." His...