Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), commonly known as e e cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. During World War I, he worked as an ambulance driver and was imprisoned in an internment camp, which provided the basis for his 1922 novel The Enormous Room. The following year he published his first collection of poetry. Cummings wrote approximately 2,900 poems and is often regarded as one of the most important American poets of the 20th century. He is associated with modernist free-form poetry, and much of his work uses idiosyncratic syntax and lower-case spellings for poetic expression. In the following recordings, Cummings reads his poems "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond" (1931), "next to of course god america i" (1926), "anyone lived in a pretty how town" (1940), "Buffalo Bill's (1920), "in Just-" (1920), i carry your heart with me(i carry it in)" (1952). The final audio clip is from a 1955 Cummings speech, "A Poet's Advice to Students."
