Writing Like EE Cummings Makes Me Feel Like I'm Back In High School

Starting off September with one of my favorite poets from when I was in middle school. Rereading No Thanks by EE Cummings.  A lot of the typography-based poems feel really dated and unnecessarily convoluted. But there are also a few of my favorite poems by dead white guys in this collection. (And this book is entirely responsible for my use of parentheses the way Nikki Giovanni's Those Who Ride The Night Winds is responsible for my use of justified text in poems.)

---

I (Do Not) Hate ((The Moon) The Way You Hate
​Adam Stone

I (do not) hate ((the moon) the way you hate
spiders)(though both crawl across) our horizon
too often )That's not quite correct (No)( Wait
(I do) // When you set your (stupid) eyes on
a target )love?( )need?( )wallet?( )shelter( me
) you quantify the precise velocity
you can reach before it (or she) (or he)
(this time actually me) will decide to flee
(or rather watch you flung) \\ I do not hate
I study indifferent now thanks to your
fingers (spidering spidering) I wait
until I can feel (pull of the moon) no more
anything for anything like your name
I do not call it hate Though it feels the same