Poets are free to write in many different styles and structures about an infinite variety of subjects. The large amount of poetry written this century provides readers with many alternatives. Modern poetry comes in many varieties, anything can be considered a great poem. Poems vary by writer, some may seem abstract and contain hidden messages while others are straightforward and clear. "Anyone lived in a pretty how town" written by E.E. Cummings and "Richard Cory" written by Edwin Arlington Robinson may seem very dissimilar in diction and punctuation. Through a close examination of the significance of the poems I will show how "anyone lived in a pretty how town" and "Richard Cory" are in fact similar.
             "Anyone lived in a pretty how town" contains nine stanzas while "Richard Cory" only contains four stanzas. Although "anyone lived in a pretty how town" and "Richard Cory" seem significantly different in length they are both composed of quatrains (quatrains are four line stanzas). Rhythmically, E.E. Cumming's poem has regularity in stanzas that refer to "Anyone" and "Noone" that does not exist in the stanzas that feature "Someones" and "Everyones". Cumming's poem lives solely in the past tense until the point at which "Anyone" and "Noone" are buried, and then it switches to the present tense for a single stanza, as they "dream their sleep". Robinson's poem is written in the past tense, and has a consistent rhyme scheme that follows itself through, stanza 1 ABAB, stanza 2 CDCD, stanza 3 EFEF, and stanza 4 GHGH.
             The plot of "anyone lived in a pretty how town" is simple, but it is the subtle language choices that this poem succeeds. Cummings's manipulation of grammar is extraordinary, he pays careful attention to how words function in langu...