[The] relationship between Cummings and his speaker is of the [kind which Friedman defines earlier as an author who "may deliberately create a poetic persona and then transform himself in its image, organizing his personal life and concerns to conform to that pattern"], and it has been made possible by endurance—or better still, integrity—rather than by a private income. His speaker is never involved in the world of work and routine which takes up the largest part of the lives of most men…. He is a detached observer and commentator rather than a participant; he is always either alone or with his lady; he never has a time clock to punch, a train to catch, a bill to pay, or a baby to feed. (p. 9)

[The incredible thing about Cummings' poetry is] how completely the man has been transformed into the artist, for his mode of...