In-Just Topographical

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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 ...

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reducing the poem’s pace to a crawl, cummings has many readers whispering the final word “wee”(24).
The pauses afforded by white space not only affect the poem’s tempo but also contribute emphases. Save for line twenty-one, which holds two words, the last nine lines of “in Just-” are supported by a single word. Although all nine lines create an emphasis alone, two of those nine lines probably command greater significance. The double-spaced indentation of “the” in line nineteen holds much suspense for the audience since “the” follows “and” a structural change from the poem’s refrain of “when the world is...” (2&10) that until this point follows “spring”(2&9). The added suspense comes ...

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