anyone lived in a pretty how town

One of the poem’s key messages is the power and importance of love, especially in the context of an uncaring, cold, detached world. The poem demonstrates this message through the love story of anyone, a man, and noone, a woman, and through the reactions to their love from the other people in the town. While “[w]omen and men(both little and small) / cared for anyone not at all” (Lines 5-6), noone’s feelings were the opposite: The line “anyone’s any was all to her” (Line 16) suggests that, to noone, the love between her and anyone meant the world. The narrative of anyone and noone shows the positive effects true romantic connection can have on people, drawing a clear line between their meaningful, warm love and the anonymity and indifference between everyone else.

Cummings chooses to make this message universal by using anonymous names like anyone, noone, someones, and everyones. These names illustrate the way that, regardless of time or place, love between two people means something different in private and in public. To the people in a relationship, it gives them meaning, but that love is only understood and recognized by the people in the relationship—outside of it, there is no care for or understanding of the connection.