Sound and Typography of in Just
Upon looking at e. e. cummings's poem, "in Just-",perhaps, two features immediately become apparent: the use of white space between some words and lines, and the multiple use of a single word supporting an entire line. To a lesser degree, the poem's visual also features the boys' and girls' names joined together as though they were each one, and the capitalization of the "m" in "balloonMan" towards the poem's end. All these features contribute to how the poem will be read, and when the poem is read, the sound, furthered by alliteration, assumes an alternating rhythm of excitement and measured awareness. That is, an accelerated tempo that reflects the excited manner of child-like exuberance for springtime revelry, and the lull in tempo that is attributed to the measured awareness or ambivalent feelings felt towards the " goat-footed balloonMan." The poem's rapid and then measured tempo creates an artistic tension that coincides with the speaker's account of a remembered spring. By employing white space, alliteration, compressed conjunctions, and some unconventional capitalization, e. e. cummings creates a dream vision of a remembered springtime- revelry that reads with both excitement and a measured awareness.
"in Just-" is probably a good example of a free-verse poem. The poem's visual appearance might be compared to a page of dialogue within a drama-script . What makes cummings's poem better is the direction given to the reader, such as the odd capitalization to suggest an accented syllable, or the white space to imply a pause, better still, his use of compressed conjunctions to effect haste and emphatic tones, add the repetitive refrains for accent and syncopation and one could set this poem to music. The pauses afforded by white space not only affect the poem's tempo but also contribute emphases. Save for line twenty-one, which holds two words, the last nine lines of "in Just-" are supported by a single word. Although all nine lines create an emphasis alone, two of those nine lines probably command greater significance. The double-spaced indentation of "the" in line nineteen holds much suspense for the audience since "the" follows "and" a structural change from the poem's refrain of "when the world is..." (2&10) that until this point follows "spring"(2&9). The added suspense comes with the extended pause to simulate the end-line white space and the indentation. However, "the"(19) prepares an even longer pause and anticipation for probably the most significant line "goat-footed"(20) because the source of the poem's tension is then revealed. Although the extra white space afforded to "goat-footed"(20) follows that of the poem's line structure, as in lines five, ten, and fifteen, the single- hyphenated word commands further notice and emphasis because of the quintuple-spaced indentation it is given, and no doubt, intended to deliver greater impact that way by cummings. The greater impact is justified since the audience now becomes privy to the identity of the once cryptically described "little"and "lame"(3 and 4), "queer"and "old"(11 and 12), relatively innocuous " balloonman"(4 and 12) to the newly revealed "goat-footed / balloonMan"(20 and 21). The "balloonMan" is suggested to be the mythical Beelzebub or lecherous Pan overseeing the speaker and his playmates, which complements the tension derived from the poem's conflicting rhythms and supports cummings's poetic dream vision of the speaker's remembered springtime-revelry. Granted, the visual change to the poem regarding the last nine lines is obvious, the poem's beat nearly comes to a halt from the previous rapid and measured ones, imparting the quiet wonder-if not emphatic
Some common words found in the essay are:
, white space, nine lines, poem's tempo, measured awareness, poem read, unconventional capitalization, speaker's springtime, compressed conjunctions, springtime revelry, communicate speaker's springtime, world mud- /, simulate white space, white space spring, space line just-, space spring,
Approximate Word count = 1662
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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