Help me find this poem by e. e. cummings. I think.

October 22, 2014 10:33 AM

Years ago I encountered an e. e. cummings poem, a parody of The Fall of the House of Usher. At least, I think it was by e. e. cummings; it certainly had his 'words jumping around the page' style to it. Anyhow, the poem wasn't much more than a page, and had phrases such as, "The twister turned out to be sister," and, "the house came down like a ton of brick."

I've searched google and several collected works and have come up short. I do know (after the google search) that cummings was involved in a silent film adaptation of the Poe story, so it's reasonable to think that the poem I'm remembering was by him. I don't think his poems are searchable online (copyright), so I'm turning to you for help!

posted by garisimo to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Best answer: Was it this one by Reed Whittemore?

It was a big boxy wreck of a house
Owned by a classmate of mine named Rod Usher,
Who lived in the thing with his twin sister.
He was a louse and she was a souse.

While I was visiting them one wet summer, she died.
We buried her,
Or rather we stuck her in a back room for a bit, meaning to bury her
when the graveyard dried.

But the weather got wetter.
One night we were both waked by a twister,
Plus a screeching and howling outside that turned out to be sister
Up and dying again, making it hard for Rod to forget her.
He didn’t. He and she died in a heap, and I left quick,
Which was lucky since the house fell in right after,
Like a ton of brick.
posted by northernish at 10:41 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: It must be -- too similar to what I was thinking. When I saw it on the page it was formatted much more loosely, which stuck in my mind as a cummings poem. Thanks for the fast find!
posted by garisimo at 11:15 AM on October 22, 2014

e e cummings had a very different mojo.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:26 AM on October 22, 2014 [3 favorites]