To Be Nobody But Yourself

E.E. Cummings said that “to be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight,”

I knew little about the poetry of E. E. Cummings except he didn’t use capital letters. Then a dear friend sent me one of his poem’s where Cummings says, “A poet is somebody who feels and who expresses his feelings through words.”  He then goes on to say, “Almost anyone can think, or believe, or know they feel, but that’s thinking, believing, or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling….”

I have had the honor to know several laureate worthy poets, Anne Woodworth, Roger Armbrust, Dannye Powell, and my Sufi friend Tom and the one thing they have in common is they feel.

But back to Cumming’s other statement when he talks about our struggle with conformity. Every generation believes it must battle the pressures of conformity. Is this an accurate reflection of our current society and how you feel? Let me hear from you?

About the author

Webb Hubbell is the former Associate Attorney General of The United States. His novels, When Men Betray, Ginger Snaps, A Game of Inches, The Eighteenth Green, and The East End are published by Beaufort Books and are available online or at your local bookstore. When Men Betray won one of the IndieFab awards for best novel in 2014. Ginger Snaps and The Eighteenth Green won the IPPY Awards Gold Medal for best suspense/thriller. His latest, “Light of Day” will be on the bookstands soon.

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