The poet I chose was Shel Silverstein, full name is Sheldon Silverstein. Silverstein's verse and illustrations in his books for children are celebrated for their whimsical sense of humor, satire, and absurdity, a literary critic from Critic Megan Rosenfeld.
Some background knowledge of Shel Silverstein. Shel was born in Chicago, Illinois. He started drawing and writing and drawing when he was very young. Late, he beacame a cartoonist, playwright, poet, performer, recording artist, and Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated songwriter. Usually to start a poet off, they would look through other poets work and develop on it, but never studied the poetry of others, developed his own style: laid-back and conversational, occasionally employing profanity and slang. Another fun fact to know about Shel was that in the beginning, he did not write children’s poems. His editor was the one who encouraged him to write children’s poem. After he wrote his first children’s book, he loved his work and decided to continue.
I like his wroks as it is hilarious and entertaining, especially Cloony The Clown, Messy Room and Bear In There. His poems are targeted at children, thus he poems tend to rhyme and be repetitive. When we read his poems, we feel sort of childish again. His imagination is very wide as in Messy Room, he imagined what a messy room looks like. To make it hilarious, he imagined things in a weird places like the workbook is wedged in the window. It would set us thinking how on earth did the book get from the rightful place, the table, to the window and a lizard named Ed is sleeping on the bed.
The parts which I like about his poems. Shel’s poems are also in short and concise sentences and when reading it feels easy and fun, just what must be included in a children’s poems. When I read it, I felt a hopping sensation as the poems have some kind of tune. The poems he wrote are more on what children like for example Cloony The Clown. Children like clowns and funny things. Shel also related his poems to events in our everyday life. For example, in our life, we have messy rooms and hence, he wrote a poem on a messy room.
Why I chose this poet instead of other poets. Other poems written by other poets sometimes tend to be very philosophical. Like about the balance of the world and love itself. Shel’s poems have been simple to understand and fun to read. For children like us, we do not understand about the ‘world’ or maybe just a little.
