Crazy Blue Jay

E.E. Cummings was a poet who made up words, smushed words together, broke them apart across lines, used strange punctuation, and rarely succumbed to a capital letter. It’s weird poetry, And yet it has a clarity that straightforward, English teacher-approved verse does not.

Take this poem about a blue jay. Jays are cousins to crows, both in the corvid family.

crazy jay blue)

crazy jay blue)
demon laughshriek
ing at me
your scorn of easily

hatred of timid
& loathing for(dull all
regular righteous
comfortable)unworlds

thief crook cynic
(swimfloatdrifting
fragment of heaven)
trickstervillain

–e.e. cummings

I most often encounter jays while hiking. Their shade of blue? Crazy. If I could hear them laugh, it would be a “laughshriek / ing at me.” Their “scorn” for someone like me is evident—  I am too “timid,” too “dull all / regular righteous / comfortable.”

Jay comes with his resume: “thief crook cynic.” He hands it to me as he is “swimfloatdrifting.” He’s so beautiful. He looks like a “fragment of heaven).”

But I know better. We have met before. He is “trickstervillain.” And I love him for it.

“Megan Willome has captured the essence of crow in this delightful children’s collection. Not only do the poems introduce the reader to the unusual habits and nature of this bird, but also different forms of poetry as well.”

—Michelle Ortega, poet and children’s speech pathologist