When I taught my first writing workshop for UC Berkeley Extension in 1980, I had no computer or cell phone. If I was stuck in traffic or there was a riot downstairs (true story) or God walked into my classroom (true story – he seemed ready to take vengeance on his enemies, but offering him a cigarette got us a pass) there was no way to call anyone. And if I couldn’t remember something during class, I was out of luck.

Last Saturday as I began a workshop on grammar (the power, not the rules) I referred students to a page in my workbook only to find that the E.E. Cummings poem I’d had there for years was gone. I’d taken it out for copyright reasons (which I didn’t have to do) and now I missed it. Not wanting to misquote a single word or rule breaking, I took out my mostly functioning Moto Q during the break and successfully Googled the poem.

Apt for a grammar workshop, here’s the complete poem:

****
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis
****

I can’t teach writing or grammar without remembering always that “feeling is first.” And when it comes to writing for PR and trying to understand communications in social media, we’d be wise to keep this poem handy.

Communication, e.e. cummings, grammar, Moto Q, PR, since feeling is first, Social Media, UC Berkeley Extension, Writing

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