English 28A
Instructor Godden
October 27, 2014
“Next to of course god America I” E.E. Cummings was very interested in modernist poetry. This is a satirical poem – which consisted of sarcasm and mockery against people encouraging the act of patriotism in others. The poem is unique because has two main speakers.
“Next to of course god America I” by E.E. Cummings is a traditional sonnet because it consists of fourteen lines. The poem also contains enjambment because of the run-on sentences between the lines and it also contains a perfect rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme for this poem is A-B-A-B-C-D-C-D E-F-G-F-E-G. The last line of the poem is disconnected from the rest of the lines and can be seen as a distraction, but where he says, “And drank rapidly a glass water” can be seen as him washing down and digesting everything that he had stated in his speech. This poem contains sarcasm because Cummings couldn’t believe how far people would go for their country. Cummings also broke this poem up into two quatrains and a sestet and in line 9, he broke the word beaut/iful in half to keep that rhyme scheme and form, but can also can be seen as the speaker trying to display that beauty can actually be broken and turned ugly. He uses enjambment, which can portray how he rambles on about this overly patriotic people and uses sarcasm to show his dislike. The words are being merged and can be seen as the speaker just blurting out the poem, which devalues the message of the politician. There is little punctuation and there are two voices: a main politician and a third party observer. The little punctuation makes this poem fairly difficult to read and can show that Cummings is looking down on nationalism. There is also a lack of organized thoughts and sentences, which could emphasize how he thinks patriotic people become unorganized and have no logic if they are too patriotic and show too much love for their country. This poem portrays how America is diverse and also