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Davey 1965. Why do you keep suggesting that my comments are negative? I was just posing a personal opinion. Please try to add something valuable to your comments or don't bother commenting. By the way, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wasn't a gravy mix.

Nice Poem arick. Dont be put off by Georgets Negativity .

Each to his own. However, I think I would prefer Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How do I love thee?/ Let me count the ways" as a more passionate expression of love. But as I say, each to their own.

I never said a negative thing about other poets. The context of my explanation was simply that not all poems need to or have to rhyme. I'm sorry if you failed to see that in what I thought was a rather straightforward comment. Regardless, it would appear that Mr. Cummings has already stood the test of time in his own right. The only reason I posted the poem in the first place was because I thought it was a nice statement about love, rhyming notwithstanding.

Thank you for your full and exhaustive explanation. I do wish that Shelly, Byron, Wordsworth,William Blake,Rupert Brooke,Elizabeth and Robert Browning Robert Graves, and even Edward Fitzgerald who wrote "The Rubd'iydt of Omar Khayydm" were alive to share your opinion of a rather mediocre attempt of poetry.I do not believe that they would share your opinion that their poetry was "awkward and does not fit well", nor do I think it comes out "cheesy" or just complicated to read.
The great test will be when iit is time to appraise e e cummings along side the acknowledged greats of poetry.

Georgets, this poem is called "free verse" and is not supposed to rhyme. It's not a Mother Goose kind of poem.

When it comes to writing poetry, many modern opinions are that poems don't need to rhyme. While it was the traditional way of writing poetry, many people today find the traditional structures too restricting and limiting. This is one reason why today people believe that poems don't need to rhyme.

Ezra Pound was believed by many to be the modern poet to spearhead the free verse movement. Pound was a long-time studier of poetry and believed that poets should study the traditions of the art before moving beyond them. This is to say that while he practiced free verse and many of his poems did not rhyme, he first started with formal poetry and learned the traditions, history and formal customs before moving on to do things his own way.

One reason why poems don't need to rhyme is that the forced rhyme can be awkward and not fit well into the flow of the poem. When trying to force a rhyme, you may lose the meaning you were going for with the poem and in many cases, it comes out cheesy or just complicated to read.

Some poets today find that they write some poems that rhyme and probably more that don't. Other write with partial rhyming in a poem but no strict meter or rhyming rules. But just because free verse is popular today doesn't mean you can scratch a bunch of words onto paper and call it a poem. There should still be structure, flow and a point. But there doesn't necessarily have to be rhyme.

Thanks for posting this....this is one of my favorite ee cumings poems...Thomas

It doesn't rhyme!