Happy Thanksgiving from Hannah, Her Sisters, and E. E. Cummings

A holiday explainer plus a palate-cleansing sampling of poems about gratitude to offer at your own Thanksgiving celebration this year.

Mia Farrow & Dianne Wiest in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

I guess this is the time of the year when I write about E.E. Cummings’s poem “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond.” Last holiday season I wrote about the poem’s role in I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Disney’s box office bomb starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

Apparently that poem is also the ultimate tool of seduction, because in that film and in Hannah and Her Sisters it’s used as a tool by somewhat unscrupulous men who are seeking the affection of a woman who doesn’t initially want to be with him.

Some Disclaimers

Hannah and Her Sisters is a pretty good film made by a bad man.