ee cummings, a pacifist, was imprisoned during World War One for his supposed disloyalty to America. He was also accused, falsely, of being a spy. After the war he moved to Paris where he wrote satirical poems. His novel The Enormous Room (1922) was the first of his many literary attacks on authoritarianism and rabid nationalism.

The poem is a parody of a ‘speech’ to extreme patriots — the ranting monologue of ‘God-fearing’ America. It is also a satire on the type of blind jingoism that distorts otherwise intelligent minds in relation to their country. cummings applies a reductio ad absurdum technique, mocking the way in which people blinded by patriotism can acquire illogical and dangerous beliefs.

cummings uses a dense mishmash of American anthems, songs and other patriotic American sentiments, a technique is known as intertextuality. These are broken up by few dismissive words, like, “and so forth” and “what of it”.

It is notable that there are fourteen lines — the length of a sonnet. Sonnets usually end with either a rhyming couplet or a rhyming quatrain. cumming’s poem does the latter. This is ironic, as sonnets are formal, structured and intelligently witty, whereas this poem is nonsensical gibberish — though of course also extremely intelligent.

cummings deliberately makes the poem incomprehensible, like the extreme patriotism he is mocking. Added to this, it reads like a drunken ramble; being a god-fearing patriot clearly doesn’t exclude a drink problem.

The poem encapsulates cumming’s attitude, as summed up by the final line; contemptuous and deeply sceptical.