{"id":1068,"date":"2007-12-21T00:01:18","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T06:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1068"},"modified":"2007-12-21T08:24:03","modified_gmt":"2007-12-21T14:24:03","slug":"1068","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1068","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: E.E. Cummings’ “little tree”"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, I’m sharing E.E. Cummings’<\/a><\/strong> holiday poem, “little tree.” Here’s the beginning: <\/p>\n

little tree
\nlittle silent Christmas tree
\nyou are so little
\nyou are more like a flower <\/p>\n

who found you in the green forest
\nand were you very sorry to come away?
\nsee i will comfort you
\nbecause you smell so sweetly <\/p>\n

i will kiss your cool bark
\nand hug you safe and tight
\njust as your mother would,
\nonly don’t be afraid<\/font><\/p>\n

And you can read the rest here<\/a><\/strong>. The spacing is a little off here; there should be a significant amount of space after “see,” but WordPress won’t let me do that. (And the above link to the entire poem disregards those spaces, too, but if you’re super interested, just go get E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, and take a gander there. Great book). <\/p>\n

This poem was originally published in Cummings’ Tulips & Chimneys<\/em>, his first published work in 1923 (first one after The Enormous Room<\/em>). <\/p>\n

I’ve read about and seen different picture book adaptations of this poem, including Deborah Kogan Ray’s<\/a><\/strong> lovely, gentle version from 1987 (pictured here — I couldn’t find an image any larger). But I had no idea that Chris Raschka illustrated one<\/a><\/strong> in 2001 (published by Hyperion and pictured above). I’ll have to go find this one, since I’d love to see Raschka’s contemporary take on the poem. <\/p>\n

Happy holidays to all!<\/p>\n

MORNING ADDENDUM<\/em>: Wow. Do you want to read a really powerful poem that Elaine Magliaro shared at the Blue Rose Girls’<\/em> site? Check it out<\/strong><\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, I’m sharing E.E. Cummings’ holiday poem, “little tree.” Here’s the beginning: little tree little silent Christmas tree you are so little you are more like a flower who found you in the green forest and were you very sorry to come away? see i will comfort you because you smell so sweetly i […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-friday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}