Shel Silverstein

shel Silverstein

Sheldon Allan Silverstein was born September 25, 1930, in Chicago, IL. As a child, Silverstein aspired to be a pro-baseball player. Seeing that he had little athletic ability and utilizing his natural talent for drawing, he contributed cartoons to Roosevelt University’s student paper: The Torch. After being drafted into the army, Silverstein worked as a cartoonist for the Stars and Stripes publication. Silverstein has since become an accomplished poet, cartoonist, songwriter, and playwright, including his critically acclaimed children’s books, A Giraffe and a Half, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and A Light in the Attic, and his work with Playboy magazine. Along with poetry, Silverstein has released many music albums, including Hairy Jazz, and has also penned lyrics for country artists such as Johnny Cash. Silverstein is a recipient of The New York Times Outstanding Book for Children Award. Silverstein died in Florida in 1999.

Official Website

Uncle Shelby's Poems

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"Sick"

As I began researching for this project, Silverstein’s poem “Sick” (Silverstein, 2022a) kept reappearing across many sources. Compared to the rest of Silverstein’s children’s poetry, this piece does well in representing his writing style. For example, many of the lines in this poem follow an AABBCC… pattern. The pattern is only broken with the last line, where “play” is added to pair of rhyming words “say” and “Saturday.” In conjunction with the one stanza format, this simple rhyming pattern creates a childish and almost careless style that fits the poem’s material. “Sick” is geared toward children. It is easy to see the poem’s popularity among children because of Silverstein’s use of simple words to tell a story that many children have either thought of doing or have done themselves, while also adding a joke at the end.

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"Listen to the Mustn'ts"

 Now, continuing with the children’s theme, Silverstein makes his own word— “Must’nts,” arguably meaning the “must nots.” Silverstein’s “Listen to the Mustn’ts” (Silverstein, 2022b) is a cautionary tale for children. Silverstein notably capitalizes some words appearing mid-sentence. These include “Mustn’ts,” “Don’ts,” “Shouldn’ts,” “Impossibles,” “Won’ts,” “Never Haves,” and “Anything.” These are not proper nouns, so I am not sure as to why Silverstein chose to capitalize if not only to grab attention. Continuing with formatting, the last line is indented, which I thought was strange, and something that children would not notice although they are the target audience.
Rhyming, again, is so simple in this poem. It is fascinating how Silverstein creates entertainment out of short poems consisting of small words that are geared toward children. All the while, he is conveying a deeper message inside what appears to be a small amount of work. In actuality, this poem does have a message to proclaim. In line four, he uses the word “child,” as well as in line one; however, in line four, Silverstein switches from a make-sure-to-do-this kind of attitude to a more optimistic outlook by using the word “Anything.” He’s telling kids that if they do what they are told now, they can achieve great things.

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"Where the Sidewalk Ends"

Silverstein is testing his limits in “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” (Silverstein, 2022d). Here I saw a departure from the typical, simple rhyming, and childish premise. Introduced here are more abstract topics and phrases, some of which I am unsure of. For example, throughout the poem, but especially in the first stanza, I noticed many peculiar phrases, such as “grass grows soft and white” in line three, “moon-bird” in line five, and “peppermint wind” in line six. Again, this poem is more abstract than those prior. One possible meaning I thought of was this poem was representative of the ending of childhood, but also of the area before adulthood, an awkward, in-between phase, or teenage years. This theme is represented in the last stanza with the lines “Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow… For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends.” Children understand that adulthood is coming and that they must go to that place someday. It is interesting to note, that Silverstein says “We” in line 13, including himself with the children and therefore contradicting the message of his poem.

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"Lazy Jane"

This poem is just breaking the mold. Silverstein’s proving a point that poetry can be just about anything. Silverstein’s wit comes out in the fact that this poem took little effort, and it is about a lazy girl. The formatting of “Lazy Jane” (Silverstein, 2022e) is unlike any poem I have seen before. It is interesting to note that only two lines rhyme and while “lazy” is repeated six times, “wait” is repeated only five times.

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"Skin Stealer"

Lastly, Shel Silverstein’s “Skin Stealer” (Silverstein, 2022c) showcases his moral-teaching values. It also showcases one of Silverstein’s weaknesses. As discussed in the literary criticism below, Silverstein’s work is often fun-filled but not thought-filled. In this case, the “thought bucket,” so to speak, is a little fuller, which leads to other areas of the poem lacking. For example, while the poem rhymes, there is no pattern to which lines rhyme; however, this poem, out of all analyzed on this page, tells the deepest story. It attempts to illustrate why we as humans sometimes do things against our values in a way that kids (who, again, are his target audience) will connect with and understand, however make-believe it may come across as.

About Silverstein

In short, Silverstein was influenced by the mere lack of influence. Growing up, Silverstein enjoyed baseball and wished he was better with girls, but in truth, he was neither a great baseball player nor a natural speaker. In consequence, Silverstein kept to himself and taught himself to draw. Based on his own drawings, Silverstein began to write (Gailbraith, 2022). His poetry later became centered on children and embodied many of Silverstein’s whimsical characteristics. His pieces for children are based on everyday happenings that are geared to teach (Hawtree, 1999) and entertain a wide audience (What was Shel Silverstein inspired by?, 2022).

As mentioned before, many of Silverstein’s writings are accompanied by his drawings. While working for Stars and Stripes, Silverstein based his work on his time in the US army (Shel Silverstein Biography, 2010). Later his drawings in Playboy depicted the sights and experiences he had while traveling worldwide (Shel Silverstein, 2022). Silverstein had little exposure to other poetry and artwork, which was a way for Silverstein to develop a unique style (Gailbraith, 2022).

Shel Silverstein is one of the most revered children's poets of all time (Macdonald, 2003). In fact, in 1974, Silverstein won The New York Times Outstanding Book for Children Award for his piece Where the Sidewalk Ends (Shel Silverstein biography, 2010). Aside from his well-known works for children, Silverstein has left his mark on the music industry, as well, particularly in country music with his lyrics written for American legend Johnny Cash which include "25 Minutes to Go" and "A Boy Named Sue." Silverstein also has released many albums himself (Hawtree, 1999); however, out of all his creative pieces, two are still widely accepted as masterpieces: Where the Sidewalk Ends, and A Light in the Attic-- both collections of children's poetry (Macdonald, 2003).

Ruth K. MacDonald, in her piece titled “The Weirdness of Shel Silverstein,” states that traditional “poetry [has] ‘spinach’ value— good for you, but with little appeal to the palate,” (2003, para. 1)— a statement that successfully encompasses the premise of her writing in whole while coupled with poetry being “presented in a pedagogical, systematic way, with emphasis on the literary and didactic values” (para. 1) when presented to children. Her point here is thus: Shel Silverstein does not fit the mold. In fact, he shatters nearly every poetic convention en route to connecting with children. The aforementioned aspects do not do well for kids. That is what makes Silverstein stand out.

Macdonald’s writing ranged from praise to scorn, but leaned often to praise, with which I heartily agree. She claims that Silverstein is the only children’s poet to gain substantial success (2003). Meanwhile, Silverstein is regarded as a “less-than-perfect craftsman,” (Macdonald, 2003, para. 5) and MacDonald points out the lack of poetic enrichment in Silverstein’s works. At the same time, however, most of the paper focuses on the accessibility of Silverstein’s work to an extraordinarily large audience and age range by keeping rhyming and format simple, and subject matter light. All in all, this piece of criticism highlights Silverstein’s strengths without setting him on too high a pedestal.

You can find my annotated literary criticism document here.

Access the Shel Silverstein Foundation official website here for news, resources, and activities.

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"Ladies First" (Shel Silverstein - Topic, 2015)

This video shows why Silverstein connects so well with children. His expression, his word choice, and his story choice all show the childish nature of this great poet. I was surprised by the expression in his voice as he was retelling this piece. At some points, I found him so into character that he was hard to understand. I have come to learn that poetry is written to be heard back aloud, rather than read. Silverstein does this so well.

Conclusion

If there is one thing that Silverstein has taught me through this project, it is this: poetry is what you make it. It does not have to rhyme, it does not have to conform to general formatting rules, and most importantly, it does not have to be boring. In fact, Silverstein has made poetry accessible to and enjoyed by children, and children, as we know, are seldom entertained by things that are sophisticated, or in other words, something similar to the way I used to view poetry.
In short, Silverstein broke the mold. I would say he broke rules, but again, he has proved that there are no cold, hard rules, but more suggestive guidelines, the likes of which Silverstein ignores. I have grown in admiration for his work, mostly because his disregard for formality comes across so natural, that it leads me to assume that careful thought and craftsmanship have taken place to deliver audiences true masterpieces.

References

Aiello, A. (2013, Oct 11). Tyranny of parents: banning Shel Silverstein. Pen America. https://pen.org/tyranny-of-parents-banning-shel-silverstein/

Galbraith, B. (n.d.). Shel Silverstein. Pennsylvania State University Press. http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/b/c/bcg5010/styleb.html

Hawtree, C. (1999, May 16). Shel Silverstein. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/may/17/guardianobituaries1

MacDonald, R. (2003). "The Weirdness of Shel Silverstein." edited by David M. Galens. vol. 49. Gale Literature Resource Center. link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420051911/LitRC?u=ogde72764&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=433e2e66.
Originally published in Studies in American Humor (1986). vol. 5, no. 4. pp. 267-279.

Shel Silverstein. (n.d.). Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. https://chicagoliteraryhof.org/inductees/profile/shel-silverstein

Shel Silverstein biography. (2010). Super Children’s Books. http://www.super-childrens-books.com/shel-silverstein-biography.html

Shel Silverstein. (2022, Mar 24). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shel_Silverstein

Shel Silverstein - Topic. (2015, Nov 30). Ladies First [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/yFdRCPbXdQw?list=OLAK5uy_nj7o3CXp2pOwstdrgnqQByCk1VfUDiQKQ

Silverstein, S. (2022, April 1a). "Sick." Retrieved from: https://poets.org/poem/sick
Originally Published in: Where the Sidewalk Ends. (1974).


Silverstein, S. (2022, April 1b). "Listen to the Mustn’ts." Retrieved from: https://allpoetry.com/ Listen-To-The-Mustn'ts-
Originally Published in: Where the Sidewalk Ends. (1974).

Silverstein, S. (2022, April 1c). "Skin Stealer." Retrieved from: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ skin-stealer/
Originally Published in: The Light in the Attic. (1981).


Silverstein, S. (2022, April 1d). "Where the Sidewalk Ends." Retrieved from: http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/shel_silverstein/poems/14836
Originally Published in: Where the Sidewalk Ends. (1974).

Silverstien, S. (2022, April 1e). "Lazy Jane." Retrieved from: https://www.best-poems.net/poem/ lazy-jane-by-shel-silverstein.html
Originally Published in: Where the Sidewalk Ends. (1974).

What was Shel Silverstein inspired by? (n.d.). Wikipedikia. https://wikipedikia.org/what-was-shel-silverstein-inspired-by/



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