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.
White space is used after the first line, “in Just-”, by cummings to emphasize the speaker’s observation that only in spring do the following things happen. The white space after “spring” in the second line suggests that the speaker ponders first what his audience later learns to be a springtime memory . The white space is quite obviously used for the benefit of someone listening to the poem being read. The white space in the first line between “Just-” and “spring” of the second line builds suspense when the reader pauses to simulate white space, and again, after “spring” when a child-like description defines what is uniquely available only in the spring. That is “when the world is mud- / luscious”(lines 1-2). Almost immediately cummings uses white space to direct the sound and rhythm of the poem that is not unlike conversation.
A gradual dream-like state is suggested to the poem’s audience by cummings’s “far and wee” refrain, which is given increasing white space and therefore longer pauses, until each word of the refrain supports its own line. Initially the refrain complements the speaker’s excited springtime revelry; in fact, line five flows nicely...
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...rbles and / piracies and it’s / spring”(7 -9) or the alliteration found “from hop-scotch and jump-rope”(15) ,wish to return and repeat it because the lines are fun to say. This pleasant effect must be attributed to the speaker’s springtime revelry who also must wish to return to these activities if not for the constant stressful reminder of “the queer/ old balloonman [whistling] / far and wee”(11 - 13). The poem’s conflicting tempos add tension to the speaker’s springtime memory, but the slowing of the tempo through cummings’s use of alliteration focuses the audience on the two emotional elements: springtime celebration and the ambivalence felt towards the ever-present “balloonMan”(21).
“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.
Fulton, Alice. “You Can’t Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain.” Approaching Poetry: Perspectives and Responses. Ed. Peter Schakel and Jack Ridl. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. 128-29.
The poem begins by establishing that the speakers’ father has had more than enough to drink. “The whiskey on his breath/ Could make a small boy dizzy.” These lines (1, and 2) help in the development of the poem because they set ...
Throughout history there have been many poets and some have succeeded while other didn’t have the same luck. But in history e.e. Cummings has stunned people with his creativity and exposure to the real world and not living in the fantasy people imagine they live in. Cummings was a great poet, and was able to make his own way of writing while he was also involved greatly in the modernist movement. But he demonstrates all his uniqueness in all and every poem, delivering people with knowledge and making them see the world with different eyes as in the poem “Since feeling is first”.
...lf War the Iraqis were a little ticked off due to their losses against the american soldiers they decided that they were not going to quit their war with us there. This war may have been one of the best military victories in military history but then again it also started up another war that would end up way worse than this one. Leading to one of the most brutal Iraq wars that the United States had which then later led up to the Afghan war. Desert Storm pretty much started a domino effect which the average civilian could look at and say that Desert Storm was bad or they could also say that it was good. Not only causing another war it also caused another disease. This disease which affects the war veterans from the Gulf War and Desert Storm. Leaving out the brutality of the Op it was a great success for the military so it can be marked down in the books of the good.
John Hollander’s poem, “By the Sound,” emulates the description Strand and Boland set forth to classify a villanelle poem. Besides following the strict structural guidelines of the villanelle, the content of “By the Sound” also follows the villanelle standard. Strand and Boland explain, “…the form refuses to tell a story. It circles around and around, refusing to go forward in any kind of linear development” (8). When “By the Sound” is examined in regards to a story, the poem’s linear development does not get beyond the setting. …” The poem starts: “Dawn rolled up slowly what the night unwound” (Hollander 1). The reader learns the time of the poem’s story is dawn. The last line of the first stanza provides place: “That was when I was living by the sound” (3). It establishes time and place in the first stanza, but like the circular motion of a villanelle, each stanza never moves beyond morning time at the sound but only conveys a little more about “dawn.” The first stanza comments on the sound of dawn with “…gulls shrieked violently…” (2). The second stanza explains the ref...
E. E. Cummings’ poem, “Maggie and Milly and Molly and May,” tells of an adventure of four girls who each learn a lesson in their experiences. To explain these lessons, Cummings uses poetic devices such as alliteration, simile, and symbolism, to elucidate the messages in an appealing way. In “Maggie and Milly and Molly and May,” Maggie, Milly, Molly, and May find a shell, starfish, crab, and stone, in which each object sends a message.
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
According to Roni Neff, Marie Spiker, and Patricia Truant, up to 40% of all food produced in America is thrown away (Neff, Spiker, & Truant, 2015, p.2). This wasted food is worth hundreds of billions of dollars that is lost each year in the United States alone, and creates many threats to our country. Food waste is an important and widespread issue in the United States because most of the food thrown away is perfectly fine, it could be used to feed the hungry, and the waste hurts the environment.
In his poem "l(a", the words are arranged in such a way that they are falling down the page. He only puts several letters of each word on a line and then continues to spell the word down the page. The main focus of the poem is about loneliness and the words almost appear to be "lonely." He uses parentheses around the phrase "a leaf falls," which appears in the middle of the poem. The remaining letters in the poem spell "loneliness." When these are placed together in the same poem, it creates an effect that there is a leaf falling from a tree to the ground where it will be lonely because it will be separated from the tree. Cummings emphasizes the image of being alone or aloof by using two versions of the word one. On the first line, he uses the letter "l," which also looks like the number "1." On ...
The beginning of the poem starts with a humorous tone. Kinnell begins his poem with a simile “snore like a bullhorn”, an “Irishman”, or playing “loud music” to express the idea of something that is really loud and noisy, but still cannot wake the son up as opposed to the child’s ability to wake up to “heavy breathing” and a “come-cry” (line1-7). The tone that the...
...vocal statement about the ?organic? possibilities of poetry than optimistic readers might have expected. ?Mayflies? forces us to complicate Randall Jarrell?s neat formulation. Here Wilbur has not just seen and shown ?the bright underside of? a ?dark thing.? In a poem where the speaker stands in darkness looking at what ?animate[s] a ragged patch of glow? (l.4), we are left finally in a kind of grayness. We look from darkness into light and entertain an enchanting faith that we belong over there, in the immortal dance, but we aren?t there now. We are in the machine-shop of poetry. Its own fiat will not let us out completely.
...eme” (Spring and All 179). It is not enough to accept Williams’s words in Spring and All as a sound argument for the direction of poetry or as a proper list of what poetry shouldn’t be. One must examine the work as a reactionary piece to the issues of the time period it was written in while insuring that it carries along the ideals it intends to redefine, without question.
Childhood poverty has increased to its highest point in 20 years (Holland, 2014) and become a major concern and issue in the United States. Since 2007-2009 poverty has increased 2.3 percentage points for white children and 6.4 percentage points for Hispanics (Lopez, & Velasco, 2011). The Children’s defense fund states that 1in5 children in America are poor. This increase is putting millions of children at an increased risk of injury or death (Holland, 2014). The U.S. has been fighting the war on poverty for over fifty years and there has not been much progress. Besides health, poverty affects many other aspects of a child’s life and development, but it especially affects their cognitive and education ability. The educational and cognitive gaps
What is ethics one may ask, well according to the oxford online dictionary ethics is moral principles that govern a person 's behavior or the conducting of an activity. That is what a person may view as right or wrong and good or bad. Ethics is very important in one’s society and each society as its own moral and principles governing certain issues and religion and philosophical ethics is no different. For centuries religion and religious principles has been criticized by different denominations across the world. Today I am going to speak on some moral principles of religion ethics whether they are absolute or relative to philosophical ethics, I will also be comparing religion ethics and philosophical ethics and last but not least I will speak