Perhaps one of the best love poems ever written, “I carry your heart with me” is also the most versatile. It could be read as a marriage vow, a joyous ode to a newborn and well-loved baby, or even a eulogy to a lost love. Since love can take many forms, from the carnal and intense to visceral blood ties, this poem is adaptable to all kinds and levels of love.Typically, E. E. Cummings uses typography to add depth to the tone and rhythm of his poem. In this poem, he freely uses parentheses to almost write a poem within a poem, while at the same time emphasizing his theme “i carry you heart with me.” In the stanza beginning “here is the deepest secret nobody knows,” the poet uses this typographic device by almost “burying” three intensely descriptive lines with surely the best metaphors ever used in poetry:
The poet, in fact, gets “to the heart” of the matter of what devotion is all about. True love, to be really true, must be selfless. From the outset of this beautiful piece, the author accomplishes just that in an intentionally prepossessing way that leaves no doubt of his true and obsessive dedication to the “heart” that he carries.