Seasonal Revelations from Diction and Syntax

“in Just-” - e.e. cummings

To recall innocence from the memories of the audience, e.e. cummings rebirths the traditional poem in his allusions to spring. The author throws away boxes, and reinvents words to bring the reader back to their childhood. Recollecting youthful pastimes like “hop-scotch” and “jump-rope,” e.e. cummings creates his own adjectives such as “mud-luscious” and “puddle-wonderful” to describe an infantile spring. Nostalgic, yet creative spacing in the poem leaves room for juvenile excitement and imagination. The absence of a space such as “eddieandbill” illustrates that of two boys running close together, doing everything together, as a childhood friendship can only allow. Open spaces portrays various other adolescent activities. If e.e. cummings had drawn in and around the open spaces in his poem there would be children jumping, and a balloon man calling out to them, however, e.e. cummings left those areas blank. He doesn't want you to see children jumping he wants you to jump, to hear the balloon man for yourself; he wants you to be a child once more. Still his vernal playtime image is not yet complete. In every other stanza he duplicates the scene of the “little lame baloonman,” “the queer and old baloonman,” and finally “the goat-footed baloonMan.” Cleverly e.e. cummings alludes to the Greek God Pan, the symbol of spring, to conclude his representation of the season. Half-man and half-goat balloon man watches over the immature children giving them their happiness and pure, lyrical innocence (“in Just-” is also referred to as “Chansons Innocentes I”), but remains detached from the experience similar to that of a parent or guardian. So not only does e.e. cumming recapture the resilience and delight of childhood motion, but he contrasts it to the calm and inferior contentment of adulthood responsibility. Through this e.e. cummings depicts the importance of not only receiving spring as a child, but dispensing spring as an adult.