The Full Text of “nobody loses all the time”
1nobody loses all the time
2i had an uncle named
3Sol who was a born failure and
4nearly everybody said he should have gone
5into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
6sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
7may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle
8Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
9of all to use a highfalootin phrase
10luxuries that is or to
11wit farming and be
12it needlessly
13added
14my Uncle Sol's farm
15failed because the chickens
16ate the vegetables so
17my Uncle Sol had a
18chicken farm till the
19skunks ate the chickens when
20my Uncle Sol
21had a skunk farm but
22the skunks caught cold and
23died and so
24my Uncle Sol imitated the
25skunks in a subtle manner
26or by drowning himself in the watertank
27but somebody who'd given my Uncle Sol a Victor
28Victrola and records while he lived presented to
29him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
30scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
31tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and
32i remember we all cried like the Missouri
33when my Uncle Sol's coffin lurched because
34somebody pressed a button
35(and down went
36my Uncle
37Sol
38and started a worm farm)
The Full Text of “nobody loses all the time”
1nobody loses all the time
2i had an uncle named
3Sol who was a born failure and
4nearly everybody said he should have gone
5into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
6sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
7may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle
8Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
9of all to use a highfalootin phrase
10luxuries that is or to
11wit farming and be
12it needlessly
13added
14my Uncle Sol's farm
15failed because the chickens
16ate the vegetables so
17my Uncle Sol had a
18chicken farm till the
19skunks ate the chickens when
20my Uncle Sol
21had a skunk farm but
22the skunks caught cold and
23died and so
24my Uncle Sol imitated the
25skunks in a subtle manner
26or by drowning himself in the watertank
27but somebody who'd given my Uncle Sol a Victor
28Victrola and records while he lived presented to
29him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
30scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
31tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and
32i remember we all cried like the Missouri
33when my Uncle Sol's coffin lurched because
34somebody pressed a button
35(and down went
36my Uncle
37Sol
38and started a worm farm)
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“nobody loses all the time” Introduction
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"nobody loses all the time" appears in E. E. Cummings's 1926 collection is 5, where it was originally titled simply "ONE XI." The poem describes the doomed career of the speaker's Uncle Sol, who fails over and over at farming: he runs a vegetable farm that gets eaten by chickens, so he starts a chicken farm that gets overrun by skunks, and so on. The poem ends with a morbid joke: Sol himself dies—and his corpse "start[s] a worm farm" underground. In the end, the claim "nobody loses all the time" sounds part ironic and part sincere: the poem suggests that some lives really are unlucky, but that even the unluckiest lives have redeeming elements. Plus, all living things end up as worm food, so we're part of a grander cycle no matter what.
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“nobody loses all the time” Summary
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Even the unluckiest people have some luck.
My uncle Sol seemed destined to be a failure all his life. Almost everyone thought he should have tried for a career on the vaudeville stage, maybe because he could sing the comic song "McCann He Was a Diver" like nobody's business on Christmas Eve. And this might or might not explain why Sol treated himself to perhaps the most—if you'll excuse the fancy phrasing—inexcusable of all luxuries: namely, farming. And, needless to say, Sol's farm went bust because his chickens ate his crops. So then Sol found himself with a chicken farm, until skunks ate the chickens.
At that point, Sol had a skunk farm—but then all the skunks died from a cold. So my uncle subtly mimicked them by also getting sick and dying, or maybe he drowned himself in his water tank. Anyway, when he died, someone who'd once given him a phonograph and records now gave him, on the grand occasion of his death, a marvelous—no, an absolutely splendid—funeral, complete with tall guys wearing black gloves, flower arrangements, the works.
I remember how much we all cried at his burial: the waterworks were like the Missouri River. Someone pushed a button, and Sol's coffin jerked and dropped into the grave, where his corpse started a worm farm.
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“nobody loses all the time” Themes
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Death and the Circle of Life
E. E. Cummings's "nobody loses all the time" spins a wild comic yarn about the speaker's doomed Uncle Sol. Over the course of the story, Sol takes up farming and suffers a cyclical series of failures: chickens eat his crops, skunks eat his chickens, and so on. Finally, Sol himself dies and his corpse goes underground to "start[] a worm farm." Through a mix of gallows humor and cartoon zaniness, the poem makes the point that it's a dog-eat-dog (or skunk-eat-chicken) world out there. Life's a series of challenges, then we die and become worm food—and the cycle starts over again.
Though it's presented as a comic anecdote, the poem's plot consists of a series of deaths—plant, animal, and human. Uncle Sol tries to succeed at farming, a job that's literally about breeding life (crops and livestock) to nourish other life. Over and over, he fails. Yet even his failures illustrate how the death of one thing nourishes another: chickens eat veggies, skunks eat chickens, and so on. Ironically, Sol only succeeds at farming, in a sense, when he himself dies and "start[s] a worm farm" in the grave, continuing the cycle and breeding new life.
The implication of the poem's macabre punchline is that the circle of life goes on no matter what—and we're all part of it, whether we like it or not. Sol can't fail at this last form of "farm[ing]": he is worm food now. And the worms will, in turn, make the soil more fertile, enabling plants to grow and other humans to farm the land (or try to!). In the end, the poem seems to remind readers there's no escaping death. Whether or not we're "born failure[s]" like Sol, we're born to die, destined to be absorbed back into the endless circle of life. In that way, humans are just like vegetables, chickens, skunks, worms—anything we might consider a lesser life form. We all came from soil and we'll all return to it.
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Failure, Despair, and Hope
The title of "nobody loses all the time" could be read as the poem's central message—if it weren't drenched in irony. The poem's main character, Uncle Sol, is a "born failure" who crashes and burns in every endeavor he tries—and finally loses everything he's got, including his life. Meanwhile, he never pursues the one thing he's good at: singing. Yet by the poem’s end, Sol's story also reflects some of the optimism of the title, even if the optimism is the speaker's rather than Sol's own. The speaker compares Sol's death to a new undertaking ("start[ing] a worm farm"), as if to imply that hope springs eternal even in the grave. And if Sol enjoyed entertaining people, his story is certainly entertaining! The poem as a whole seems to hint that life can consist of chronic "los[ing]"—but that there are grounds for hope, and humor, even in unlucky lives.
From the start, the poem's title clashes with the relentless misfortunes of its protagonist. Uncle Sol seems to live under a curse: he's a "born failure." Though he can sing and "should have gone / into vaudeville," according to those who know him, he goes into farming instead. It's not clear how much choice he had, however. The mischievous speaker describes Sol's farming career as something he "indulges" in, the most "inexcusable of all [...] luxuries"—but this might be an ironic reversal of the truth. Show business is more likely than farming to be a dream people "indulge[]," so Sol may have been forced into his farming career by circumstance. Either way, he fails miserably at it: his chickens eat his vegetables, then skunks eat his chickens, then even the skunks get sick and die. Finally, Sol himself dies, in what might well be a death of despair. The speaker leaves it unclear whether he dies of illness like the skunks "or by drowning himself in the watertank,” thus inflicting the final "los[s]" on himself.
From one angle, then, Sol's life looks like a monument to futility and broken dreams. The moral of his story seems to be the exact opposite of the one in the title. Even in death, he can't catch a break—or rather, he catches one too late. Unexpectedly, someone "present[s]" him with a "splendiferous funeral" to honor "the auspicious occasion of his decease." But he doesn't get to enjoy this windfall; others do. The lavish "flowers and everything" around his coffin ironically seem suited to the star he wanted to be, not the failed farmer he was.
Still, the poem contains some evidence that does back up the claim in the title, and suggests that Sol's life represents a victory after all. By catching cold and dying (if that's what actually happens), Sol "imitate[s] the / skunks in a subtle manner," as if doing an impression of them. In an ironic way, then, his entertainment career is alive to the end! His story seems to amuse the speaker, and it's clearly meant to entertain the reader, too.
Plus, Sol gets a grand sendoff, even if he's not there to see it. His funeral is paid for by a mysterious benefactor who had previously given him a phonograph and records—so there was at least a little luck, and a little music, in Sol's life. (The brand name of the phonograph, "Victor Victrola," even contains a synonym for "winner"!) And the mourners at Sol's funeral "cr[y] like the Missouri" River, suggesting that he was loved by many.
Meanwhile, Sol is on to his next endeavor. Of course, "started a worm farm" is just a joking way of saying "became worm food"—but it could also reflect the kind of irrepressible spirit that kept Sol going through his misfortune. Even if he ended up taking his own life, despair doesn't get the last word here.
Though the poem's robust comedy lies more in the speaker's telling than in Sol's own experience, it partly redeems the bleak facts of Sol's story. The poem can be read as a high-spirited celebration of Sol, much like the "splendiferous funeral" that capped his life. It can also be read as a roundabout proof of its title, suggesting that even the Uncle Sols of the world aren't complete "lose[rs]" or "failure[s]." In fact, they're often memorable and lovable.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “nobody loses all the time”
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Lines 1-6
nobody loses all the time
i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself whichThe opening line of the poem gets a stanza to itself, and can be read as a kind of thesis statement: "nobody loses all the time." In other words, even the unluckiest person has some luck once in a while.
But this statement immediately starts to sound ironic in light of what follows. The speaker starts telling the story of their Uncle Sol, "who was a born failure." So this will be a poem about someone who loses most of the time, at least. The question is whether this man is a total loser, or whether even he scores a victory now and then. Right away, then, the opening claim becomes ambiguous, and by the end of the poem, the reader is left to judge whether it's true or false.
In the speaker's telling, it's not that Uncle Sol was totally hapless. In fact, he had a knack for singing and performing. He "could / sing" the old comic song "McCann He Was A Diver" like nobody's business—or, as the speaker colorfully puts it, "like Hell Itself." He would sing this song "on Xmas Eve," presumably to entertain friends and relatives. "Nearly everybody" who saw these performances thought that "he should have gone / into vaudeville"; that is, he should have tried to make a career performing in variety shows. ("Vaudeville" was a kind of theater that combined singing, dancing, comedy skits, and more, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.)
Of course, the word "nearly" qualifies the claim a little bit. Obviously, there's a difference between amusing family members around the holidays and entertaining thousands on stage. And even people who respect Sol's talent aren't sure he could have made it in show business. They just suspect he could have gone further in it than in the work he actually chose—which, as the rest of the poem explains, was farming, a career at which (to put it mildly) he did not succeed.
Here it may be relevant that the nickname "Sol" is usually short for "Solomon," a name associated with wisdom (as in the biblical King Solomon). If the name is meant as an allusion, the fact that Sol keeps bumbling into folly and "failure" gives it an ironic tinge.
By line 6, the poem's general form, or formlessness, is clear. It's written in sprawling free verse that suits the speaker's chatty, energetic style. Its many enjambments (e.g., "named / Sol") make the speaker's narrative style sound almost breathless. One line spills into another, unpunctuated, with no consistent logic to the line breaks, as if the speaker is too exuberant to pause or organize their thoughts.
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Lines 7-11
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle
Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be -
Lines 11-18
and be
it needlessly
added
my Uncle Sol's farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm -
Lines 18-25
till the
skunks ate the chickens when
my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died and so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner -
Lines 26-31
or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who'd given my Uncle Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and -
Lines 32-38
i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol's coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol
and started a worm farm)
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“nobody loses all the time” Symbols
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The Victor Victrola
Though it's a small detail, the "Victor / Victrola" in lines 27-28 carries some hefty symbolic weight, representing Uncle Sol's off-kilter brand of luck.
The Victor Victrola was a popular brand of phonograph (or record player) manufactured in the early 20th century. Uncle Sol was clearly a fan of music: the speaker mentions that he was a talented singer of comic songs, and that people in his life thought he "should have gone / into vaudeville" (lines 4-5). So his Victor Victrola suggests that his interest in music and entertainment continued long after he had taken up a (failed) farming career.
Plus, the Victrola was a gift from an unnamed benefactor, who gave it to Sol "while he lived." Once Sol died, this same mysterious benefactor also threw Sol a grand "funeral." The Victrola thus represents the one stroke of luck Sol experiences during his lifetime as opposed to after his death. The record player seems to have brought a little music and joy into an otherwise unlucky life, as if to prove the claim in line 1: "nobody loses all the time."
In short, the record player symbolizes Sol's kind of victory: not what most of the world would call a successful life, exactly, but a warmth, friendliness, and joy that gives even his failures a hint of grace. That symbolism is right there in the record player's name! Cummings plays on the fact that the word "victor," as in the brand name "Victor Victrola," is a synonym for "winner."
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“nobody loses all the time” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Irony
"nobody loses all the time" is charged with irony from start to finish.
First, the title (which is also the opening line) has an ironic relationship to the events of the poem. The poem's protagonist, Uncle Sol, is so unlucky that he does appear to lose "all the time." Only in subtle ways does Sol emerge as a kind of winner: for example, lots of loved ones mourn him after he dies. But then, it's also rather ironic that most of his good fortune only comes along when he's no longer around to appreciate it (as when a benefactor throws him a "splendiferous funeral").
Likewise, Sol's final farming venture is "start[ing] a worm farm" in the grave. Of course, this is just a comic euphemism for becoming worm food; Sol isn't actually trying to "farm" under the earth. The speaker is cheekily presenting Sol's death as one more attempt at success, when in reality, death marks the end of all such attempts. Sol was a "born failure" and he died a failure, at least in financial terms.
There are other, subtler ironic touches throughout the poem. For example, the speaker frames farming as a self-indulgent "luxur[y]" compared to a career in show business, when most of the world, arguably, would see it the other way around. This unexpected framing underlines the idea that Sol wasted his true talents while doing something he had no talent for. Later, "chickens" eat Sol's "vegetables" and "skunks" eat his "chickens," so that Sol suddenly finds himself with a "skunk farm." Again, the phrasing is loaded with irony: Sol doesn't have an organized "farm" of skunks, he has a plot of land overrun with skunks.
In general, the poem's ironies turn Sol's sad story into an entertaining comedy, while presenting a wry perspective on life in general. In the end, the claim "nobody loses all the time" can be read as pure verbal irony (that is, the speaker might mean mean the opposite of what they're saying). But the speaker might also be partway sincere. They might feel that even a life as loaded with situational irony as Sol's—a life in which nothing works out as you hope or expect—has some redeeming elements.
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Enjambment
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Repetition
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Hyperbole
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Allusion
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"nobody loses all the time" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Vaudeville
- McCann He Was a Diver
- Highfalootin
- Victor Victrola
- The auspicious occasion of his decease
- Splendiferous
- Scrumptious
- The Missouri
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A popular form of stage entertainment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, typically featuring music, comedy, dancing, and other variety acts.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “nobody loses all the time”
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Form
The poem is written in loose, conversational free verse. Its casual form conveys the voice and attitude of its speaker, who is telling an old family anecdote with plenty of padding and digression along the way.
The poem's first and last stanzas contain one line each, while the middle six stanzas contain six lines each. This symmetrical structure lends a hint of order to an otherwise freewheeling and unpredictable piece. The first line (which is also the first stanza!) gives a thematic introduction to the poem (and is now often printed as the poem's title, though originally the poem was simply numbered as part of a sequence). The middle six stanzas develop the poem's weird, wild narrative, while the last line/stanza serves as a kind of punchline. (Old Sol, the failed farmer, has started a successful venture after all: a "worm farm," in the grave.)
In terms of line length, the poem veers all over the place, ranging from one to 17 syllables per line. In general, the language here is proudly informal and "unpoetic." It has a boisterous comic energy that may be partly inspired by old vaudeville comedy routines (see lines 4-5).
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Meter
As a free verse poem, "nobody loses all the time" contains no regular meter. Its line and stanza lengths vary wildly; for example, line 37 contains only one syllable, whereas line 6 contains 17. This unpredictability contributes to the poem's offbeat, madcap quality.
In general, E. E. Cummings was famous for his playful experimentation with language. He wrote poems in regular meter and rhyme, poems whose words are scrambled and scattered all over the page, and just about everything in between. His daring free verse experiments (which can sometimes read like comic pranks) joined the broader wave of literary innovation known as 20th-century modernism.
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Rhyme Scheme
The poem is written in free verse, so it doesn't have a rhyme scheme. (In fact, it doesn't use end rhyme at all.) The absence of rhyme keeps the poem light and informal, as the speaker ramblingly—but entertainingly—monologues about their late, lamented "Uncle Sol." (The speaker's zany patter might even be inspired by the kind of comedy routines found in old vaudeville shows, which apparently inspired Sol as well.) A formal structure or traditionally "poetic" technique like rhyme would undermine the loose, colloquial flavor of the language.
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“nobody loses all the time” Speaker
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The speaker is a relative (nephew, niece, or nibling) of the hapless "Uncle Sol." Beyond that, the speaker's identity is never revealed: Sol is the clear protagonist here. Still, the speaker's personality comes through in their telling of Sol's story.
It's the speaker, for example, who describes Sol as a "born failure." They have a bluntly realistic attitude toward their uncle, seeing him as someone who (contrary to the poem's opening line) does "lose[] all the time"—though this doesn't stop them from feeling affectionately toward him. (They mention his skill at singing, join the many mourners who "cried like the Missouri" at his burial, and so on.)
The speaker also editorializes about Sol's choice of careers, calling "farming" (with some apparent irony) "that possibly most inexcusable / of all to use a highfalootin phrase / luxuries." Basically, they think Sol's farming ventures were ill-advised and self-indulgent, even if farming is usually considered an honorable, salt-of-the-earth type profession.
Here the speaker also shows a desire not to speak in too "highfalootin" (fancy) a fashion—to keep things light and colloquial, in other words. As a result, the poem itself doesn't come off as a "highfalootin" work of art, but a funny, tongue-in-cheek one.
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“nobody loses all the time” Setting
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The poem's setting is unnamed, but readers can guess Uncle Sol takes up farming somewhere in the rural United States: the speaker's distinctive colloquial vocabulary and their allusion to the Missouri River suggest that much. Besides those hints, the setting feels pretty general: one can raise "vegetables" and "chickens" (and be pestered by "skunks") pretty much anywhere.
This lack of detail helps give Uncle Sol's tale a universal quality: he's a generic lovable loser, the kind who might pop up in anyone's family, anywhere. When the poem reaches its closing graveyard scene, it ends up in the most universal setting of all!
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Literary and Historical Context of “nobody loses all the time”
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Literary Context
E. E. Cummings (often styled "e e cummings") lived from 1894 to 1962 and was one of the most distinctive voices in 20th-century American poetry. The tradition that his name should be written without capital letters draws on his idiosyncratic style: Cummings liked to experiment with language as a visual medium.
Cummings's playful poetic innovations made him an important voice in the avant-garde literary world of the 1920s, a movement in which writers pushed the boundaries of traditional poetic form. Cummings is also often considered a major modernist, one of a group of early 20th-century poets who championed free verse. (Other voices in this tradition include William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and T. S. Eliot.)
Cummings's work met with suspicion from both more conventional and more subversive writers. But that was nothing he wasn't ready for. In a short essay offering advice to young poets, he remarked that being a poet means "to be nobody-but-yourself"—and that to do so "in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." By the end of Cummings's life, the poetry world had recognized his unique brilliance, and he was widely lauded, earning honors from a Guggenheim to a prestigious fellowship from the Academy of American Poets.
Cummings published "nobody loses all the time" in his 1926 poetry collection is 5, which contains some of his most enduringly popular poems: "since feeling is first," "next to of course god america i," and more.
Historical Context
Cummings published "nobody loses all the time" in 1926, during a relatively optimistic period of world history. World War I (in which he'd reluctantly served) had recently ended, and many hoped and believed that widespread bloodshed was over for good.
The so-called Great War, which began in Europe and slowly spread to wrap around the globe, killed millions of people, most of them heartbreakingly young soldiers. When the war finally ended in 1918, the world entered a confused period marked by both mourning and giddy exuberance. When the "Roaring Twenties" kicked into gear, youth culture became an important force for the first time, as the younger generation who'd survived the war partied their cares away.
The decade was marked by a rejection of old values—values which the younger generation felt had only led to devastation. Experimental, avant-garde art became popular as artists moved away from traditional forms and embraced movements like surrealism and jazz. Cummings's work was just one part of this explosion of creativity.
This particular poem enshrines some pop-culture artifacts from the early 20th century. It alludes to "vaudeville," a wildly popular form of stage entertainment that combined song, dance, comedy skits, and more. It specifically references the Irish-American song "McCann He Was a Diver," a comic ditty of the kind audiences might hear during vaudeville performances. Finally, it mentions the "Victor Victrola," an iconic brand of phonograph (record player) from the early 20th century. Together, these details portray Sol as a man who loved the popular entertainment of his age—and might even have succeeded in showbiz himself, if he hadn't gone into farming instead.
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More “nobody loses all the time” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of "nobody loses all the time."
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The Poet's Life and Work — Read a biography of E. E. Cummings at the Poetry Foundation.
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Modernism 101 — Read a brief explainer of the 20th-century literary movement with which Cummings was associated.
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Cummings: An Introduction — Read the Poetry Foundation's "E.E. Cummings 101," an overview of the poet's playful, groundbreaking work.
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A Brief History of Vaudeville — Read about the antique form of popular entertainment that "Uncle Sol" almost went into.
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McCann He Was a Diver — Listen to the old comic song mentioned in the poem.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by E. E. Cummings
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