Poetry #5

"In Just" by E.E. Cummings

in Just-

spring       when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far       and          wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

        the

                 goat-footed

balloonMan       whistles

far

and

wee


The form of this poem is what immediately caught my attention before reading it. There are not much stanzas, and even when there are, the words are spaced out. I wonder where the intent of writing poems in this form lies and if Cummins got his inspiration to craft the poem like this from other poets. Is this supposed to express the absence of space and organization of the speaker of the poem? There seemed to be a very childish and playful attitude of the poem. Cummings, overall, plays on the form of any other “typical” poem. He does not capitalize the names of the characters within the poem and also does not put spaces in between eddieandbill and bettyandisbel. I was not even able to make a distinct decision of what the foot and meters are. As far as the context goes, I was able to realize that there is a balloonman and he carries some effect on the boys. After reading this poem for the second time, I unfortunately was still not able to understand what is actually occurring, only the setting and the characters. I also did not understand where the title comes from and how it is relevant to the poem.