the poet

s.v. baum wrote this on e.e. cummings:

"In perceiving the world with full awareness, each man stands in momentary relationship with life, for everything whirls past him in never-ending change. When the moment has passed, it will never be repeated and can never be exactly matched. The poet's responsibility is to set down without falsification this single fragment of time."

i obviously put this in my paper on cummings.

it's one of my favorite quotes.