l(a

"l(a" is a poem by E. E. Cummings. It is the first poem in his 1958 collection 95 Poems.[1]

l(a


le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness

—E. E. Cummings

"l(a" is arranged vertically in groups of one to five letters.

l(a


le
af
fa


ll


s)
one
l


iness

When the text is laid out horizontally, it either reads as l(a leaf falls)oneliness —in other words, a leaf falls inserted between the first two letters of loneliness- or l(a le af fa ll s) one l iness, with a le af fa ll s between a l and one.[2]

Cummings biographer Richard S. Kennedy calls the poem "the most delicately beautiful literary construct that Cummings ever created".[3]

Analysis

In analyzing the poem, Robert DiYanni notes that the image of a single falling leaf is a common symbol for loneliness, and that this sense of loneliness is enhanced by the structure of the poem. He writes that the fragmentation of the words "illustrates visually the separation that is the primary cause of loneliness". The fragmentation of the word loneliness is especially significant, since it highlights the fact that that word contains the word one. In addition, the isolated letter l can initially appear to be the numeral one. It creates the effect that the leaf is still one, or "oneliness" whole within itself, even after it is isolated from the tree. [4] Robert Scott Root-Bernstein observes that the overall shape of the poem resembles a 1.[5]

gollark: I mean, some of the issues I have would be gone without market systems, yes, but you would then introduce new much bigger ones.
gollark: No, I like that one.
gollark: The problems I have with our system are more about issues we ended up with than the entire general concept of markets.
gollark: You could complain that this is due to indoctrination of some sort by... someone, and maybe this is true (EDIT: but you could probably just change that and it would be easier than reworking the entire economy). But you can quite easily see examples of people just not actually caring about hardships far away, and I think this is a thing throughout history.
gollark: What I'm saying is that, despite some problems, our market system is pretty effective at making the things people involved in it want. And most people do not *actually* want to help people elsewhere much if it comes at cost to them.

References
  1. Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno. E.E. Cummings. Sourcebooks, 2004. 518.
  2. Lewis Turco. The Book of Forms. UPNE, 2000. 16.
  3. Richard S. Kennedy. Dreams in the Mirror: A Biography of E. E.Cummings. Norton, 1994. 463.
  4. Robert DiYanni. Literature: Approaches to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. McGraw-Hill, 2003. 584.
  5. Robert Scott Root-Bernstein. Sparks of Genius. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001. 74.

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