The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Cummings, E E, and George J. Firmage. Complete Poems, 1904-1962. , 1991.

Note that all parenthetical citations refer to the line number from which the quotation is taken.

“I Carry Your Heart With Me” is a 15-line poem written by E.E. Cummings and published in 1952 in Poetry magazine. Lyrical and abundant, this poem about love has become one of Cumming’s most famous. Along with his many other love poems, “I Carry Your Heart With Me” has helped to ensure Cummings’s status as one of the predominant love poets of the twentieth century. But Cummings was an untraditional love poet, eschewing established literary conventions in favor of a modern, avant-garde ones. Cummings experiments with punctuation, format, syntax, capitalization, and other elements of style traditionally considered steadfast.

The poem is a declaration of love by an unnamed speaker to their lover. It begins with the speaker boldly assuring their lover of an intimate connection: the speaker carries their beloved’s heart with them wherever they go. The confident tone continues throughout the poem as the speaker tells their beloved what their shared love means to them. They further muse on how deep and how far this love goes. A deep secret, a soaring force, this love is powerful enough to maintain the universe.