In Just-Spring

by E.E. Cummings, Heidi Goennel (Illustrator)

The well-known cummings poem concerns the special joys and fears of childhood.

Genres: Poetry, Picture Books, School, Classics

28 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1990

About the author

Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 1894. He began writing poems as early as 1904 and studied Latin and Greek at the Cambridge Latin High School.

He received his BA in 1915 and his MA in 1916, both from Harvard University. His studies there introduced him to the poetry of avant-garde writers, such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound.

In 1917, Cummings published an early selection of poems in the anthology Eight Harvard Poets. The same year, Cummings left the United States for France as a volunteer ambulance driver in World War I. Five months after his assignment, however, he and a friend were interned in a prison camp by the French authorities on suspicion of espionage (an experience recounted in his novel, The Enormous Room) for his outspoken anti-war convictions.

After the war, he settled into a life divided between houses in rural Connecticut and Greenwich Village, with frequent visits to Paris. He also traveled throughout Europe, meeting poets and artists, including Pablo Picasso, whose work he particularly admired.

In 1920, The Dial published seven poems by Cummings, including "Buffalo Bill ’s.” Serving as Cummings’ debut to a wider American audience, these “experiments” foreshadowed the synthetic cubist strategy Cummings would explore in the next few years.

In his work, Cummings experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling, and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly idiosyncratic means of poetic expression. Later in his career, he was often criticized for settling into his signature style and not pressing his work toward further evolution. Nevertheless, he attained great popularity, especially among young readers, for the simplicity of his language, his playful mode and his attention to subjects such as war and sex.

The poet and critic Randall Jarrell once noted that Cummings is “one of the most individual poets who ever lived—and, though it sometimes seems so, it is not just his vices and exaggerations, the defects of his qualities, that make a writer popular. But, primarily, Mr. Cummings’s poems are loved because they are full of sentimentally, of sex, of more or less improper jokes, of elementary lyric insistence.”

During his lifetime, Cummings received a number of honors, including an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship at Harvard, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 1958, and a Ford Foundation grant.

At the time of his death, September 3, 1962, he was the second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost. He is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.

source: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/e-...

Reviews

[Taylor Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't read the children's book just the actual poem. Overall, this poem isn't really anything special. The allusions to Pan are interesting as well as the meaning that gives the overarching story but the literal poem is just somewhat bland. Not my favorite but not terrible.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Just-Spring E. E. Cummings speaks on the beginnings of spring muddy with puddles and concerning an old balloonman (satyr?), and the children who drop what they're doing when he calls them to his side by whistling.

[Madelaine O'Neil]

I am not quite sure how I feel about this poetry book, it wasn't my favorite. The illustrations do not appeal to me at all, and I wasn't very drawn to the words either. One thing that I did find interesting is that there was hardly any punctuation or capitalization in traditions places. A few times there were capitol letters in the middle of words (like "wheeEEE), yet proper pronouns like names were not capitalized. There was nothing necessarily bad about the book, it just wasn't my style and that's okay. I would still have it in my classroom because it could appeal to other students' styles, I just wouldn't pick it to read out loud.

[DaShannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this in my classroom this year as an inspired, mentor journal writing. I read it and had the students make note of what stood out them and then what they enjoyed about spring. We used it later when we wrote a longer essay about the seasons. This edition is beautifully illustrated by Heidi Goennel. Cummings poem first appeared in a book of poetry in 1923 so I need to look that one up. This poem / illustrations include children without clear faces which I think is interesting. The bold colors and the Cumming's spacing of words make a lovely way to experience the poem.

[Kiana Rios]

The language feels fresh and full of energy, almost like a celebration of new beginnings. The charming illustrations in the book complement the poem beautifully, making it a perfect read for children, while still resonating with adults who can appreciate the magic of the changing season. The way Cummings describes the arrival of spring, with children playing and flowers blooming, fills me with a sense of wonder and excitement.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This poetry book was really confusing, I couldn't imagine an elementary student trying to read it either. When we first start the poem book the first thing I notice was the illustrations and how it brings the story together if you can't interpret the words of the story. One thing I do like about this book is how everything rhythm's and the colors that are being provided.

[Krislyn]

I was looking for some texts to go along with the theme of spring. I was finding texts that were fairly similar, so finding this poem which stood apart was nice!

[Vindhya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ouffff haunting in all ways

[Siskiyou-Suzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love ee cummings but this book is kind of creepy.