Why is the moon "angry" in e e cummings' "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls"?

Question

The e e cummings poem "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls" mocks the titular ladies for their small-minded domesticity. The last four lines read:> .... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above Cambridge if sometimes in its box of sky lavender and cornerless, the moon rattles like a fragment of angry candyI believe I understand the main point here: the Cambridge ladies are too wrapped up in their gossip and knitting to care about anything else, even something as significant as the sky and the moon; such things are "above" their notice. What I don't understand is why the moon is said "sometimes" to "*rattle* like a fragment of *angry* candy."What occasions does cummings mean by "sometimes"? How does the moon "rattle"? And why is it "angry"?

Answer 1

In Cummings’ opinion, the ladies do not spend enough time thinking about the things Cummings feels are important, such as “if sometimes in its box of sky lavender and cornerl ess, the moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy.”

The way Cummings describes the moon in this final line is a sharp contrast to the way he describes the Cambridge ladies. He uses an explosion of adjectives to describe the details of the sky and moon; details that this section of society overlooks in favor of meaningless things.

The message Cummings is trying to send with this poem, and with many of his poems, is that details matter.