Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 14, 1894. He earned a BA from Harvard and volunteered to go to France during World War I with the Ambulance Corps. After the war, he stayed in Paris, writing and painting, and later returned to the US. He died in Conway, New Hampshire, in 1962.

e.e. cummings was married three times. His first marriage to Elaine Orr (who left her husband for him)lasted only six months. His second marriage (to Ann Barton) was a stormy, passionate one lasting only a few years. He at last met Marion Morehouse, an actress, model, and photographer, whom he married and lived with for the remaining thirty years of his life.

cummings had one daughter, Nancy, from his first marriage.

cummings is one the most innovative contemporary poets, though in some ways he is oddly traditional. He drops or distorts punctuation and syntax, but at the same time uses rhymes more characteristic of earlier styles.

cummings published more than nine hundred poems and other works.