Why Is Winter Considered A Lonely?

Why is winter considered a lonely time of year? Is it because of the barren trees and other plants? Or is it the fact that every person on earth, it seems, flees inside to escape the cold? E.E. Cummings considers this topic of loneliness exquisitely in his poem titled, “l(a.” Cummings was born in late 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. He is world renowned as an important contributor to 20th century literature. “l(a” was considered a work of art as much as it was considered a literary masterpiece. It features four words broken up into nine vertical lines, coalescing the phrase, “a leaf falls”(lines 1-6) within the first two letters of the word, “loneliness” (1, 7-9). Written
A poem can have the same words written multiple ways and invoke different meanings and feelings based solely off the form. Cummings uses form in, “l(a” masterfully and thus adds more to the main topic to the poem. When first reading the poem, the excessive amount of enjambed lines forces the reader to slow down as to not read it incorrectly, miss a letter, or skim over the deep message in general. Perhaps Cummings wanted the reader to bask in the overwhelming sense of loneliness that the poem creates. Cummings also uses enjambment to create imagery within the poem. The phrase, “a leaf falls”(1-6) has an incredibly shattered syntax, and the reader's eyes move across the poem as if they are watching a literal leaf fall from a tree. This adds to the message of the poem by invoking the image of the leaf falling further into the reader's head, which leaves the reader feeling just as lonely as the leaf. Another important aspect of the form in Cummings’ poem is that the sentence, “a leaf falls”(1-6) is written between the first two letters of the word, “loneliness” (1, 7-9). I interpreted this as Cummings attempt to create loneliness visually on the page. The typography of loneliness separates it from itself, and separation is a key aspect of loneliness. After looking at the poem for a while, without paying attention to the words, another aspect of Cummings’ use of form caught my eye. The poem itself is shaped like the number 1; the way the four words are spread vertically among nine lines creates a tall, skinny structure which resembles a 1. Being that the number one is the numerical representation of loneliness, I was once again awestruck by the beauty of the form of this poem. Lastly, when reading each line of the poem separately in attempt to gain a further insight, I noticed that line 7 of the poem is simply the word, “one”(7). This relates to the overall shape of the poem in that