in the beginning

E. E. Cummings is one of my favorite poets so he'll be showing up here quite a bit. I'm starting with this one, though, because I think of it as the first poem that made me love poetry. I discovered it in 5th grade during our poetry project - I don't remember if I found it myself or if the teacher showed it to us, but it really stuck with me. In fact, my only other memory of the entire project was staying up super late typing my anthology the night before it was due. This one is far from my favorite Cummings poem, but I think the reason it made such an impact was that before, my only real exposure to poetry had been Shel Silverstein, and this honestly might be the first time I realized poems don't have to rhyme!

in Just-

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

Reading over it, I really don't think much of this poem at all. I just remember being intrigued by the fact that the balloonman is "goat-footed" and the repetition in different formats of "far and wee." The one thing I do just love about this one is Cummings' delightful word choice. Some of my absolute favorite adjectives (what, you don't have a favorite adjective?) are "mud-luscious" and "puddle-wonderful."