Francois'+Analysis

//By: François Dossin// The poem __Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand__ by //e.e.cummings// is a very good example of one of those works that indirectly relates to the story of an event of the life of the author, in this case, Cummings. At first glance, the poem does not have the structure that a traditional poem has, but after a careful analysis, the structure becomes more interesting, and it is then possible to see some patterns.

The first line, “Spring is like a perhaps hand” really got my attention, because it is a line that opens the reader’s imagination as he/she tries to define what a perhaps hand can be. The first time I read the poem, I thought that the author had purposefully reversed the order of some words, resulting in: Spring is like a __perhaps__ hand, rather than Spring is __perhaps__ like a hand. No matter what order of the words Cummings decided to use, the opening line of the poem is comparing the Spring with a hand. But how could the Spring and a “perhaps hand” be related?

My first interpretation was that the hand was used because it symbolizes greeting, because humans often shake hands when meeting each other. In a similar way, Spring greets the year, it marks the beginning of a new cycle of season, of life…

Later in the poem, “moving a perhaps fraction of flower”, line 16-17, the poet provides a new hint that helps to better understand, and better interpret the first line. In line 17, Cummings talks about flowers, which are usually associated with the spring. Flowers also are related to a hand, flowers open and bloom in the same way as a hand opens, the fingers of a hand represent the petals of a flower, which gradually spread apart from each other, and uncover the palm of the hand, just like the petals uncover the hidden center of a flower.

On line 9, “changing everything carefully”, the poet gives yet another hint for interpreting this strange and enigmatic opening line. The words “changing” and “carefully” bring the notion of change and subtlety. Spring changes nature, trees “re-become” green after having lost all their leaves during the Winter. Spring also changes nature in the way that many animals end their hibernation period, many of them also start their breeding season. But Spring also makes the transition between Winter and Summer, the temperature changes, the water unfreezes... However, all those changes are not instantaneous, and to use Cummings’ words, “the changes happen __carefully__”. Many of them are not noticeable, because they happen so slowly, only the result is visible. “Spring is like a perhaps hand” could then mean that the hand is similar to the spring, because a hand can be subtle, a hand also changes throughout the course of “its life”, it grows and moves carefully, just like the Spring.

In this poem, not only the first line is enigmatic. The structure is anything but usual. If you look at the poem, without reading it, it looks like two big chunks of lines, separated by a line in the middle (Line 9). There is no meter in each lines, they do not all have the same number of syllables. But even without reading the poem, and just looking at its “physical” structure, the reader can tell that there is a very basic pattern employed by the author. The pattern observed is a repetition of many words used in the first part of the poem, used again in the second part. Those words and lines include the previously discussed opening line “Spring is like a perhaps hand”, the words “changing, carefully, placing, arranging…”.

In the poem, this repetition is certainly used to emphasize the aspect of all the elements and interpretations discussed in the beginning of this analysis. All those words keep the same meaning, but are used and placed differently throughout the poem, to give a second idea to the reader concerning the meaning of the poem, and to make it open to more diverse interpretations.

__Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand__ by e.e.cummings is a poem that depicts and humanifies the Spring.