Explication of "In Just-"

           After reading In Just- for the first time, I initially thought it was childish. It’s awkward breaks and simplistic language emphasizes this aspect. However, amongst this childish set up, a “goat-footed” balloonman wanders through. This mythological allusion makes him seem like an old, well traveled man, unlike the balloons and presumable children referenced throughout the poem.

            I find her spacing especially interesting. She pairs together “eddieandbill” and “bettyanddisbel” along with “balloonman” as if each pair is a singe unit. The fact that these groupings of people are not capitalized nouns further emphasized their dehumanization. Without individual names, they lack importance. They are turned from pronouns into nouns. It could also symbolize how close these pairs are to each other. Meanwhile the spacing between “whistles far and wee” physically shows the distance that the sound of the whistle travels. Cummings places “whistles” and “far” more spaced out from each other than “and” and “wee”.

            The use of the words “mud-luscious” and “puddle-wonderful” depict the rain fall in the spring. This time of great change is occurring nature and amongst the children. For, the children seem to be growing up, or living as children do, playing “hop-scotch and jump-rope”. However, the old, “lame balloonman” contrasts to this depiction of spring. Despite his goat-footedness, he whistles on. This could mirror the songs of birds in the springtime. The children leave their “hop-scotch and jump-rope” to go to this whistling balloonman which cotuld mirror them leaving behind their childhood and growing towards adulthood.

            In the poems last stanza lies one of two capital letters used throughout the poem. It is found as the “m” in “balloonMan”. This emphasizes the word man. Since the poem ends with this, it suggests that all childhoods end, and everyone’s ultimate fate is adulthood. So like the children, the poem ends in adulthood.