My Favourite Poet

He was a cartoonist, playwright, poet, performer, recording artist, and Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated songwriter. Who, you may ask, have this much titles? Who, you may ask, have this much titles but you can't put a name on? He is Shel Silverstein, who have passed away in May, 1999. He was best known for his iconic books of prose and poetry for young readers. His works include Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back (1963), The Giving Tree (1964), A Giraffe and a Half (1964), The Missing Piece (1976), and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O (1981). There's also his immensely popular poetry collections but I won't name the books because that would mean I'm using examples to fill up my 400 words.
Some background information: Shel Silverstein was born on September 25, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois and began writing and drawing at a young age.
I chose him as my favourite because he is the only poet whose poems I can understand fully without external help. His poems had a deft mixing of the sly and the serious, the macabre, and the just plain silly. His poem collections never fail to captivate and surprise me. His poems are not just beloved by children, they are read and loved by adults too.
Three Poems By Shel Silverstein:

1). If the World Was Crazy

If the world was crazy, you know what I'd eat?
A big slice of soup and a whole quart of meat,
A lemonade sandwich, and then I might try
Some roasted ice cream or a bicycle pie,
A nice notebook salad, an underwear roast,
An omelet of hats and some crisp cardboard toast,
A thick malted milk made from pencils and daisies,
And that's what I'd eat if the world was crazy.

If the world was crazy, you know what I'd wear?
A chocolate suit and a tie of eclair,
Some marshmallow earmuffs, some licorice shoes,
And I'd read a paper of peppermint news.
I'd call the boys "Suzy" and I'd call the girls "Harry,"
I'd talk through my ears, and I always would carry
A paper umbrella for when it grew hazy
To keep in the rain, if the world was crazy.

If the world was crazy, you know what I'd do?
I'd walk on the ocean and swim in my shoe,
I'd fly through the ground and I'd skip through the air,
I'd run down the bathtub and bathe on the stair.
When I met somebody I'd say "G'bye, Joe,"
And when I was leaving--then I'd say "Hello."
And the greatest of men would be silly and lazy
So I would be king...if the world was crazy.


2). Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.


3). Sick

"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut--my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

Taken from Poets.org

Figurative language in Poems

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Figurative language used:
"And there the moon-bird rests from his flight" Metaphor and personification is used. The moon-bird represents the moon and his flight means the flight path of the moon in the sky.

"Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow" Asphalt flowers represents the asphalt roads, and the flowers represent how common asphalt is in the city, like flowers in the countryside.

"There is a place where the sidewalk ends" Where the sidewalk ends is a symbol which symbolises the place where the endless roads and all the things in a city ends, for example a countryside, there is no roads, buildings and naturally no sidewalks. The author used sidewalks because sidewalks are more familiar to children, as the roads are a place of danger to them.

"Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black" The place where the smoke blows black is the city, most likely the industrial area as all the pollution, which is the smoke, comes from. so naturally the 'place' is a city.


Why I like this poem:
This poem instills an emotion of longing for natural things, the grass, the sun and all that that a child would have in a city covered with smoke from the cars and factories. The poem repeats about the chalk-white arrows and the walking measured and slowed. That gives me a sense that the children will get to where the arrows are pointing and out of where the smoke blows black. Also, the poem is short and easy to understand, and I never liked long poems, mostly because I won't be able to understand it.

If many people think something is true, is it true?

If everyone else thinks dragons exist, would you? If you know that they do not exist but everyone else thinks otherwise, would you believe them? Would dragons really exist? Therefore, I believe that if many people think something is true, it is true IF it is a scientific fact. If not, or if it have not been proven yet, we should prove it scientifically, or alert the group of people that they are wrong if that something is fiction. But how would you know if that something is fiction or fact?

Of course, there’s still the part about opinions. If many people believes that something is true, and you don’t, does that mean you are wrong and they are right? It could be different opinions. In that case, there are three different possibilities. One being both are wrong, another being one wrong and the other, correct, and the last one being both are correct in different ways. But how would you know if something is fact or fiction? How do you know all this is real? Opinions, facts, even fiction, are all what we see of this world. But what is real to us, how do you know it is not fiction to other sentient beings?

Take the example of Gods. There are many people in the world who believe in Gods, but do they really exist? Those people seem to think so. If you pray, and a ‘miracle’ happens (I’m not a believer), is it really an act of a God? Or is it just a coincidence? Not everyone gets their prayers answered you know. You would not know if Gods really exist, or if they exist and we don’t. Therefore, you can’t tell if something is true even if many people think it’s true.

What is happiness?

Everyone wants happiness, don’t they? But sometimes this question comes up in my mind: What is Happiness? I’ve thought about it quite a few times, and frankly, I haven’t come up with any conclusion to it.

Now, I shall pen my thoughts down in black and white, my thoughts about what is happiness. Is happiness a state of mind? Or is it something else? Is it what you feel when you win the lottery? Is it what you feel when your child scores straight As? Or is it both? I think it depends. I feel that there are different types of happiness, one being the temporary, where you feel happy about an event, and that passes as the event passes. The other would be longer. It is what you feel when you have a wife/husband of your dreams and you she/he loves you a lot. It is also what you feel when you live everyday of your life as though it is your last.

Why do we feel happy? I feel that I have to at least talk about this as it (I believe) is part of the question. Why do we feel happy? It may be because we see, do, hear, taste etc something we like very much. For example, we could feel happy when we eat something we like, we could also feel happy when we hear music or sounds we like. Why do we like those things? This would link to our personalities, and that would be too far away from the main point.

There is no way a person would be happy everyday about everything every time, because for that to happen, he/she would have to have everything, have nothing, control everything, control nothing and the feeling of content, he/she would also have to have a child, have no children etc. The list can go on and on, with most of them contradicting each other.

And now I conclude my passage with no conclusion at all, for who will know what exactly happiness is? Or is there no such thing as happiness, for it is only a label?