"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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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” Summary
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“nobody loses all the time” Themes
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Death and the Circle of Life
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Failure, Despair, and Hope
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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 which -
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
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“nobody loses all the time” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Irony
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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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- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “nobody loses all the time”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“nobody loses all the time” Speaker
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“nobody loses all the time” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “nobody loses all the time”
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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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