Inspiring Older Readers
in Just-spring by e. e. cummings
In 1972 when I rolled-up for Freshers Week at Bangor University we were shuttled into the main hall where various student societies were desperate to recruit new members for their activities. I’m not the type to join clubs now and nor was I then and so the AmDram Society had very little chance of getting me to commit. A rather charming and winsome third year student did, however, succeed in getting me to go along to one of the rehearsal sessions ‘just to see if I liked it’ and what I most remember now isn’t anything to do with the drama but my first real encounter with the poetry of e.e. cummings.
A rather gnomish drama lecturer was rehearsing his modern dance interpretation (!) of the cummings poem, in Just-spring and although the (over-athletic, contortionist) dance did very little for me, the poem stuck in my head and rattled around. And it’s been rattling around ever since.
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
Cummings died in 1962 at the age of 67 and surprisingly enough his work had become, by the middle of the 1960s, hugely popular. He was, in the view of a number of critics at that time, the USA’s second most widely read poet after the mighty Robert Frost. Despite the fact that he became progressively right-wing in his later years, his modernist approach seemed to chime with the emerging counter-cultural spirit of the age and his years living in Paris amongst the avant-garde along with his idiosyncratic approach to structure, spelling and punctuation seemed to emphasise his anti-establishment credentials.
But as quickly as his stocks rose, they peaked and began to fall. Criticisms of his work as pretentious (that lower case name took a pounding) and, more importantly I think, shallow, eroded his reputation.
While he still has his followers – and it’s now often assumed he’s essentially a ‘young person’s’ poet – his standing in the poetry pantheon has never recovered to the level he achieved at the zenith of his reputation. His output in the final years of his life, was I think, justly criticised for its use of overt racist language – although cumming himself always argued rather implausibly that he was highlighting racism and not celebrating it.
However, I still find in Just-spring an atmospheric and incisive poem about the transition from the assumed innocence of childhood to the erotically despoiled world of the adult. His use of language is frequently the aspect of the poem that most immediately strikes a reader - describing the world of the child as ‘mud-luscious’ and ‘puddle-wonderful’ is perfect in terms of capturing the freedom and physical sensuousness of a child splashing around in the rain.
The sinister figure of the little lame balloon man who sits in the background of the children’s games promises both fun and something entirely more threatening at one and the same time. These children are born to grow up and it’s as if the balloon man is always there to mark each birthday and each step towards adulthood.
But it is when the balloon man is revealed to be Pan – the Greek god associated with unconstrained nature and hedonism - that we understand how the springtime of these children will mature into adulthood and that sex will play an increasingly important part in that process. It is, we discover, the sexual urge that has been constantly whistling ‘far and wee’ in the background of their lives.
This is not a complex poem – its effectiveness depends almost entirely on the creation of atmosphere through the conjunction of carefully selected words placed in an equally carefully selected structure. The message that we all must make the transition from a carefree childhood to an adult world dominated by urges inspired by the goat-foot god of misrule is not a deep one. But it is a universal story and one that I think cummings captures brilliantly.
Terry Potter
August 2018