Edward Estlin Cummings (1894 - 1962)must have been a heck of a guy.
Ex-Havard and the son of a Harvard professor and church minister, he had two stormy and brief marriages (Elaine Orr, then Anne Minnerly Barton) and finally settled into a non-marriage with Marion Morehouse, a fashion model and photographer, which lasted until he died.
Cummings was a handsome, erudite guy who appeared addicted to beautiful women, and had the ability to charm them with his intellect and poetry.
He was full of contradictions - he had an intense relationship with God, but wrote erotic poems, and some beautiful spiritual ones in later life - in this regard his poetic work developed in a manner similar to one of my other favourite poets, John Donne. He was involved in the war, but deeply anti-war. He appeared to be a radical bohemian, but was an ardent Republican.
Here's one of my favourite cummings quotes:
We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit. (e e cummings)
