Poetry is not something I naturally gravitate towards. Reading novels brings me much joy and unfortunately I can’t say that poetry does the same. Because of this lack of love for poetry, I didn’t know where to start when it came to finding my poem for this essay. I decided to start with E.E. Cummings, enjoying the work we analyzed in class. My first thought upon seeing “[hist whist]” in Cummings’s long list of poems was that I had never seen those two words before. It drew my attention and I immediately clicked on it. As I read it for the first time I found myself quite flustered. Reading poetry is so unlike reading novels and I quickly realized I was trying to read the poem like one, attempting to form deeper meanings and the poet’s message right away. I had to take a step back and go through it more procedurally, pulling it apart and piecing it back together through the different techniques we have talked about in class, such as TP-CASTT.  

First, I had to start from the beginning of the poem, the title. I’m ashamed to admit it, but when I first saw the words “hist whist” I believed it was Cummings using sounds to title his poem, I didn’t realize they were actual words. A quick dictionary search told me that a hist is an “attempt to grab attention or call for silence” and whist is “to be silent”. Already, this completely changed my understanding of the poem, so I reread it with these new definitions in mind. The next phrase that I was unfamiliar with was “hob-a-nob”. Again, at first glance, my brain decided that this must be another sound, not a real word. Learning from previous experiences, I took a chance and looked for a definition and sure enough a hobnob is a “close and friendly relationship”, Cummings using this to describe the connection between the goblins and the witches. This altered my view of the poem as well. 

Next, I looked for patterns within the poem. This was a big part of me understanding the poem as each time I reread it I was able to find new patterns that led me to new meanings and ideas. Cummings used both alliteration and repetition largely throughout the poem, creating this rhythm that made the poem fun to read. From the first stanza, alliteration is present with examples such as “tip-toe, twinkle-toe” and later “hoppy happy”. This along with the repetition of multiple words such as “little” and “devil” all gave the poem a rhythm that made it flow nicely and overall a fun read. My thought process was that the continuous use of the word “little” was to imagine these creatures spoken about in the poem as young children, adding this to the rhythmic nature of the poem, I believed that the intended audience of this poem was younger.

Overall, I thought the tone of this poem was playful. While the imagery of ghosts, witches, and goblins can be quite haunting, Cummings used energetic and active diction that made this imagery more lighthearted, especially in the first four stanzas. Words like, scuttling, hoppy, rustle and run, and twinkle-toe all contribute to this feeling of lightheartedness. These are all actions that we can associate with young children playing. There’s definitely a shift at the fifth stanza, the tone becoming darker, more sinister. The repetition of the word devil largely contributes to this, especially since towards the end it is isolated and stated four times in a row. Although, there is a shift back to the more playful tone within the very last word “wheeEEE”, the capital letters indicating that shift and bringing back the enthusiasm that was present in the first half of the poem. Even the structure plays into this lively nature, the lack of punctuation and random spacing making it somewhat chaotic. Taking into consideration the rhythm, tone, and structure of the poem, it is clear that Cummings was writing for a younger audience.

After reading this poem many times, going through TP-CASTT and dissecting the poem to my best ability, I came to the conclusion that this poem is about Halloween, but I’m still unsure that there’s a deeper meaning to it. To me, this poem is simply an entertaining poem for young children to read around the holiday. I think if you really tried, you could potentially come up with some reasoning that the poem is about the evilness of Halloween, but I think you’d have to really grasp and wouldn’t have meaningful evidence. 

Something that I hadn’t expected, but am grateful for, is that I found myself really enjoying this task. The longer I sat with this poem and digested it, the more respect I had for poetry. Hopefully this appreciation grows and maybe one day I’ll love poetry as much as I love novels.