An Explication of E.E. Cummings' "Buffalo Bill's"

E.E. Cummings’ “Buffalo Bill’s” is an excellent example of the renowned writer’s penchant for avant-garde formatting and syntactical experimentation. If we are to look at the poem from an interpretive standpoint, we immediately find our work cut out for us.

Buffalo Bill's
defunct

Thankfully, we’re not looking to “interpret” anything here, so we can forgo the rudimentary history lesson on the life and times of “Buffalo” Bill Cody. Rather than try to “understand” this piece, we’re going to decipher it and use it as proof… proof that Cummings came from the future. The blatant lack of respect for standard formatting and syntax throughout the poem is the first clue of this. Certainly a Harvard graduate like Cummings would know better. The most feasible explanation: this is how poetry (and perhaps written language in general) is commonly structured in the future.