"But it’s astonishing how far Cummings’s literary star has fallen."

Book review: In ‘E.E. Cummings,’ Susan Cheever offers a modest narrative of the poet

By Steven Ratiner, Published: April 7

"But it’s astonishing how far Cummings’s literary star has fallen. When he died in 1962, the only poet more widely read in the United States was Robert Frost. The man whom Ezra Pound called “Whitman’s one living descendant” is rarely read today nor taught much outside the precincts of the high school classroom. We’re overdue for a reexamination of Cummings and his place in the canon — perhaps, this time, something aimed at a general readership, a little chapel of insight and appreciation to encourage a new generation to discover the pleasures of this inventive and bracingly lyrical poet."