I'm a huge fan of E.E.Cummings. The words coming out of that man's mouth - well, pen - and the way he uses language can stun you. However, truth be told, he's not the easiest or the most consistent of poets. Sometimes his poems can be a little, well, tricky - ranging from difficult to I-feel-like-I'm-reading-Ulysses to pure Nonsensical. This collection, containing "some of his earliest and most experimental poems" has rather too much of the nonsensical.

Example:
"at
which(shal)lpounceupcrackw(ill)jumps
of
THuNdeRB
loSSo!M iN
-visiblya mongban(gedfrag-
ment ssky?wha tm)eani ngl(essNessUn
rolli)ngl yS troll s(who leO v erd)oma insCol

Lide.!high
n , o ;w:
theraIncomIng"

However, to justify my rating, there are also a few lovely little poems in this book, like "a clown's smirk in the skull of a baboon", "you", "it)It will it", "the first president to be loved by his", etcetera. ( incidentally, "etcetera" is one of my favourite of Cummings's poems, but not part of this collection).

Some of my favourite lines from the collection:

"Rain is no respecter of persons
Snow doesn't give a soft white damn Whom it touches"

"for only Nobody knows
where truth grows why
birds fly and
especially who the moon is"

and of course the much-quoted (by Tennessee Williams and Woody Allen, amongst others)
"Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands" ( )