Aaron Antrim
Professor Dalsant (Humboldt State University)
Practical Criticism
16 December 2004
 
On “anyone lived in a pretty how town:”
 
Great literature has been written about themes and characters both ordinary and extraordinary.  But even when telling the most ordinary story, great literature gives it an aura of extraordinariness, like in “anyone lived in a pretty how town.”  This dynamic is especially pronounced in “anyone” because ordinariness is explicitly invoked as a theme, through generic names for characters and places, which contrasts with the poem’s extraordinarily evocative language.  The contrast between the fashion in which the story is told and the content of what is narrated forms a tension that the poem must resolve.
The name of the main figure in the poem, “anyone,” appears not capitalized, unlike how a name or pronoun is conventionally written.  “[A]nyone” is an allegorical figure, a stand-in for an unknown someone, unknown in two senses, (1) the reader can only guess who, exactly, this “anyone” is, and (2) the other figures in the poem do not know or seem to care about “anyone”: “Women and men(both little and small) / cared for anyone not at all (l. 5-6).”  Yet the lyrical romanticism of the poem’s language paints “anyone[‘s]” life with color and feeling, encouraging a perception of “anyone” as special.
As it is sometimes employed in everyday speech, the connotation of the word “anyone” can be demeaning, because of its use in phrases such as “oh, anyone could do that” or “I’m not going to choose just anyone for this job.”  But the feeling of the poem is that “anyone” may not be just anyone — how could he be so, as he “sang his didn’t” and “danced his did (l. 4)?”  If any figure of the poem is just anyone in the pejorative sense, it would have to be “Women and men (both little and small) [l. 5-6].”  They just about reek of commonness, sowing their “isn’t” and reaping their “same” (l. 7).  This sentence tells more than the mundane truism that planting nothing will not yield a harvest.  The word “isn’t”, a contraction for “is not,” suggests “Women and men” are not something they might be, deficient in seed stores or ability to plant in the first place, and so the fruit never sprouts, let alone ripens.  No, “anyone” is not like the “Women and men.”  “[A]nyone,” however unclear his identity may be, is not “just anyone.”
“Women and men” together form the only capitalized term in the poem, which assigns them an importance “anyone” lacks.  The capitalization of their names functions like a title such as “Misses,” “Mister,” or “Doctor,” but despite their capitalized grandiosity, they are “both little and small) (l. 5)”.  This characterization of “Women and men” as “little” or child-is made in childish language as well, with two redundant words side-by-side.
For the sake of interpretation, it is useful to lump “Women and men” into a category of others which also includes “someones” and “everyones.”  Their presence in the poem offers contrasts and conflicts against the presence of “anyone” and “noone.”  “[Women and men] laughed their cryings and did their dance (l. 18)” and “said their nevers they slept their dream (l. 20).”  This shows their lack of emotional authenticity, for while one may laugh so hard they cry, only someone who has no authentic sorrows could chuckle at them; “did,” the most un-evocative of all verbs, implies they went through the motions of dancing without feeling; and, while one might dream in their sleep, to sleep within the world of one’s dream is a depressingly dull notion.  The theme of dull generic-ness also surfaces in how “someones married their everyones (l. 17).”  If married couples are meant to be two people out of a vast number who are meant for each other, the poem presents the opposite scenario, where anyone or “everyone” will do.
“Women and men” are further characterized by the fact they “cared for anyone not at all (l. 6).”  Here there is a play on the word “anyone.”  The line can be read in two ways, possibly at the same time: (1) “Women and men” do not care about the specific “anyone” in the poem, or (2) they do not care about anyone at all; they care about no one (but not “noone”).  The sentence highlights the two-sided (and poetically useful) nature of the word “anyone.”  If “anyone” is taken as anybody, then the poem is dealing in general terms.  But “anyone” could just as easily be referring specifically to the poem’s main character.  This tension between generality and specificity is another petal of the poem’s theme.
The tension between generality and specificity also surfaces in the setting of the poem, which, of course, is intimately tied to its inhabitant, “anyone.”  Take the first line, “anyone lived in a pretty how town” (l. 1).  “Town” is referred to by the indefinite article, opening it to allegorical interpretation, the same as “anyone.”  Yet, despite its unspecificity, the quality of language narrating “anyone’s” story is extraordinary.  Take “pretty how town.”  This description of the town concisely invokes the emphatically agreeing phrase “and how,” as in “the town is pretty (and how!)”  On one hand the town is just any-town, but at the same time it is basked in the glow of its descriptors — only a very special town could be “(with up so floating many bells down) (l. 2).”
The descriptions of the town (or should we say “a town”?) set the tone of the poem and set the stage for “anyone.”  The special-ness in which the town is basked sloughs off onto “anyone.”  In this way, again, “anyone” may not be “just anyone.”  Not only in the poem’s setting in place, but in the poem’s setting within time as well, there is a tension between universality and specificity.  An incantation of the four seasons reoccurs at three different locations in the poem.  Also, an incantation of four natural elements representing those four seasons reoccurs, also at three different locations.  The reoccurrences of these lines establish the consistent repetition of nature’s movement through its cycles, but, simultaneously, each individual line represents progressively later seasons of life.  This is achieved by the advancing order in which the seasons are intoned.
The first incantation of the seasons begins with spring and ends with winter: “spring summer autumn winter. (l. 3).”  In this line the seasons are ordered in a fashion that is common  to literature, where spring represents the beginning of life, and winter represents its end.  The second incantation, made in the metaphorical terms of the natural elements, begins with summer and ends with spring: “sun moon stars rain (l. 8).”  To decipher this code, the following transliteration can be used: “sun” corresponds to summer (owing to its long hot days); “moon” corresponds to autumn (owing to the harvest moon); “stars” correspond to winter (owing to longer nights, and reduced heat turbulence in the atmosphere, offering a crisper picture of the stars); and “rain” corresponds to spring.
The refrain of the elements is a more consistently ordered refrain in the poem than the refrain of the literally-named seasons.  The elements appear in the order “sun moon stars rain (l. 8)” two out of the three times they appear in the poem, at both their first and their last occurrence (l. 36).  This refrain, ending, instead of beginning, with spring, emphasizes the cycle’s ending first, and subsequently, its new beginning.  This line, appearing early in the poem (line 8) foreshadows the inevitable end of the cycle.  It then reappears as the last line of the poem, sealing its ending.  The change of the seasons confirms the poem is set in time, but their repetition, and the fact that no season is ever featured individually, causes the poem to be set, not in a specific time, but anytime.  This setting in time again lends credence an interpretation of this poem as a universal allegory.
An understanding of the poem as a “universal allegory” comes into play at every point in the poem, helping to explain one of the most obvious and unsettling contradictions in the poem: the presence of “noone,” as in “noone loved him more by more (ll. 8-11)”.  While “noone” is a character in the poem, her name, when spelled out as two words, directly contradicts the idea of “noone” as a valid character.  Similar to how “anyone” can be interpreted as a derogatory name, “noone” can easily be interpreted as “nothing.”
It must be asked, then, what is the perspective of the narrator, who claims the main figures of the poem are less than important individuals?  The narrator doesn’t appear to care about the characters in the poem, narrating events as important as death as if they were merely incidental: “one day anyone died i guess (l. 29).”  But it is in the way the poem is told, in the quality of language, that a tenderness comes through.  Following “anyone[’s]” death, the narrator says “(and noone stooped to kiss his face).”  The narrator speaks from multiple perspectives — both attached and detached.  Importantly, the fact that the poem is told at all betrays a certain attachment, but conversely, the fact that the poem continues for two stanzas after “anyone[’s]” death, and that the last stanza makes no mention of “noone” or “anyone,” shows their lack of  importance, and betrays a lack of involvement in the character’s lives.
This style evokes the characters’ sensitivities for their own lives, but also narrates from a perspective radically removed from the characters. Essentially, what is being told does not match up with the way it is being told.  In this way the poem is about the ordinary while itself being extraordinary, and it deals in the specific while speaking in generality. A new critical response to this piece involves integrating these conflicting aspects of the poem.
The poem answers the modern dilemma of how to experience one’s individuality while maintaining an idea of the vast expanse of time and the overwhelming population of people in which one is a mere speck.  This poem does not attempt to assign the characters any sort of megalomaniacal importance, but does grant an extraordinary quality of feeling (however passing and impermanent) to “noone[’s]” and “anyone[’s]” lives.  The fact this appreciation for this quality of feeling cannot be shared by “Women and men,” or the “someones” and “anyones” does not diminish its significance.  The poem is an allegory, asserting through its resolution that our lives matter simply because they matter to us.

Comments from my friend Joseph Russavage

I really enjoyed both the Cummings poem and your analysis. I gleaned a great deal more from it than I had caught on my first reading. You really teased the meaning out of the poem, which is the only way with Cummings. I'm not used to seeing his poetry typeset in such a traditional format. Other than that, I've always enjoyed Cummings. I think I'm a dadaist at heart, really and truly I think that I was a dada artist in a past life, and that I'm working my way back to being one in this life.

I wanted to add this to your analysis:

Also, I really like the sense, the sound of the poem. It flows romantically despite its seeming nonsensicality it makes surprising sense given the conventional meter tricks employed, repetitions and symphonic movement.

Thanks for sending me this poem!

Joseph