by Paige Vinten Taylor

Poetry invites experimentation. Many writers have accepted the invitation and found ways to uniquely express themselves—by diverging from traditional formats in ways that enhance the meaning and imagery of their poems. We’ll take a look at a few of these artists and excerpts from their work, with a particular eye for the verse they created for children.

E. E. Cummings (1894–1962) left a major mark on the genre of poetry. Poet-critic Randall Jarrell said of him, “No one else has ever made avant-garde, experimental poems so attractive to the general and the special reader.”¹ Cummings rarely capitalized words (his name, included) and used space and punctuation in unusual ways, jarring readers from the expected and getting them to think about the words and their meanings in the context of the poems.