Conventional grammar and syntax are ignored in this avant-garde poetry collection by the masterfully lyrical writer e.e. cummings, featuring 25 originally unpublished pieces from his first volume of poetry.

Exploring traditional ideas of love, nature, and death, alongside examinations of sexuality, e.e. cummings’ third poetry collection highlights his talent for reviving classic and cliché poetic themes with a modern voice.

Only 86 of the 152 poems in cummings’ original manuscript for his first poetry collection, Tulips and Chimneys (1923), were published. His second collection, XLI Poems (1925), features 41 of these unreleased pieces. Later that same year, the poet self-published this renowned volume featuring the remaining 25 poems from the original manuscript, alongside 34 new pieces.

This volume’s name also derives from cummings’ first collection. The poet had intended the book to be titled ‘Tulips & Chimneys’, but the publisher omitted the ampersand. In 1925, when cummings came to privately publish the remaining pieces from his first collection, he ensured the volume was released under the title &.

Featured in this collection are five sections:

& has been republished in a beautiful new edition by the specialist poetry imprint Ragged Hand. This volume is not to be missed by those who enjoyed Tulips and Chimneys or XLI Poems by e.e. cummings.