Tuesday, December 15, 2009

poetry and the ceremony

Was I the only one that was a little pissed Brothers & Sisters used an E.E. Cummings poem for the wedding of whatsherface and whatshisface? I got mad at Juno for basically stealing the soundtrack of my college years, so I may be a rare case.

Anyways, the Cummings poem is significant because it was the first poem I memorized and thus fell in love with. I discovered it when I was 14, before literary theory entered my life as a cruel mistress, before explications, before new historicism and all sorts of academic eggheadisms got to me. It was special to enjoy a poem because of its sonic pleasures, even more special to love it just because.

So I give you "i carry your heart." Poetry will definitely be part of our ceremony. This is one of the contenders.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                    i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant 
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)


What's funny to me now is that even though I was, cough, an English major, I can't recall any other great passages about love. Well, I could quote from Lear, but that might be depressing. Though I think this would be the best wedding vow...ever:

I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.

Is literature making an appearance in your ceremony?

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