E. E. Cummings'
E. E. Cummings was known for his experimentation with form, punctuation, spelling and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly distinctive means of poetic expression that was all his own. In the poem "Spring is like a perhaps hand", the use of irregular word patterns is flagrant and at first seems to present a serious obstacle to understanding the poem. Through the course of the poem, however, both Cummings' verbal devices and the meaning of the poem are revealed as the reader breaks down any hurdles that the style of poetry presents at first. The prejudices regarding language dissipate and give way to derivation of universal meaning and the underlying theme within the poem.The tongue practically trips over itself when reading the title aloud, abandoning the rules of grammar. The first stanza is hectic and cramped, with words
Its almost as if a giant, unseen hand is rearranging the scenery and weather around us. (carefully to and fro moving New and Old things. What is a perhaps hand? After reading the first line, it is unclear, but by the end of the stanza, the poem has created an image of this hand, frivolous, busy. Just as the living room is transformed within a couple hours by mother, the spring landscape changes from winter to summer. Furiously, her hands move all around the room, picking up a vase here, setting it down over there, turning it, wiping the dust off, straightening the books in their shelves, flattening the carpet, stroking back the curtains. This emphasizes the theme of spring in the poem. In the third stanza, aspects of nature are associated with the "perhaps Hand". "Spring is like a perhaps hand (which comes carefully out of Nowhere)arranging. When has mother ever tipped over and shattered her own porcelain bowl? Never. And then this reverie comes to a halt with a blizzard and cancelled school.
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Acceptance Essays
