The well-appraised author, Shel Silverstein, is an accomplished poet, cartoonist, songwriter, and playwright that has made an impact on children’s literature in ways that one could never imagine. Silverstein’s quirky writing style and fun black and white cartoons attached to his poems, drew many kids to enjoy his poetry even though they did not have happy endings. An exceedingly large portion of young children thrive on the notion of happy endings always being the end result, but Silverstein was able to create literature without this ¨perfect¨ ending while still being widely popular in the 20th century and continued into the 21st century. The reasoning behind Silverstein’s lack of a utopian environment and atmosphere is due to the experiences
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Critics say that Silverstein “never underestimates his readers” (Caponi 6) in which he is not afraid to talk about topics such as death, growing old, and selfishness even if most of his audience is aimed towards children. Because his audience is mostly children, he almost makes fun of the topics through using a childlike and free-flowing manner while emphasizing “the childlike appreciation of the absurdity of life” through different literary devices (Caponi 6). For example, Silverstein is largely known for playing with words like within one of his last published book, Runny Babbit. The author flips the first letters of many words in order to give a comical effect throughout the poem in order to dilute the intensity of his depressing themes.Within Trampoline by Shel Silverstein, the poem does indeed follow the suggested opinions of the critics. This is because the poem is a light and innocent scene about two kids, a boy and a girl, jumping on a trampoline by the author break the mood by inserting the phrase “while one is coming down” following the phrase “one is always going up” showing the doleful viewpoint that Silverstein has within his many poems (Silverstein 16) (Silverstein 15). Therefore, the critics views of Shel Silverstein are correct in which he implements his quirky attributes into the spry moods of his poems in order to make his largely impactful and blatantly honest …show more content…
Silverstein uses a ratio of syllables in order to create an almost musical and childish tone through an eight to six to eight to six pattern of syllables for each stanza. This means that the first line will have eight syllables, the second line will have six syllables and so forth. This pattern allows the poem to radiate youth and share his potential feelings that love can be like children jumping on a trampoline because they can only connect for a few seconds and can not bond unless the timing is right. The author also uses imagery to enforce his feelings about the topic. On line 10, he states, “she smiled and spun around” to paint the picture of what the speaker is experiencing and seeing on the trampoline (Silverstein). This line also helps to further develop the childlike manner and persona that Silverstein uses a lot within his poems but also shows how he relates many of his feelings and views to objects that could be understood by a child. Yet again, Silverstein exploits his youthful tone throughout the poem showing the realization of bad timing. So, through consistent syllabic patterns and thorough imagery, Shel Silverstein can express his quirky, childish mood and view of love indirectly while incorporating how his happy endings never seemed to
Critics say that Silverstein “never underestimates his readers” (Caponi 6) in which he is not afraid to talk about topics such as death, growing old, and selfishness even if most of his audience is aimed towards children. Because his audience is mostly children, he almost makes fun of the topics through using a childlike and free-flowing manner while emphasizing “the childlike appreciation of the absurdity of life” through different literary devices (Caponi 6). For example, Silverstein is largely known for playing with words like within one of his last published book, Runny Babbit. The author flips the first letters of many words in order to give a comical effect throughout the poem in order to dilute the intensity of his depressing themes.Within Trampoline by Shel Silverstein, the poem does indeed follow the suggested opinions of the critics. This is because the poem is a light and innocent scene about two kids, a boy and a girl, jumping on a trampoline by the author break the mood by inserting the phrase “while one is coming down” following the phrase “one is always going up” showing the doleful viewpoint that Silverstein has within his many poems (Silverstein 16) (Silverstein 15). Therefore, the critics views of Shel Silverstein are correct in which he implements his quirky attributes into the spry moods of his poems in order to make his largely impactful and blatantly honest …show more content…
Silverstein uses a ratio of syllables in order to create an almost musical and childish tone through an eight to six to eight to six pattern of syllables for each stanza. This means that the first line will have eight syllables, the second line will have six syllables and so forth. This pattern allows the poem to radiate youth and share his potential feelings that love can be like children jumping on a trampoline because they can only connect for a few seconds and can not bond unless the timing is right. The author also uses imagery to enforce his feelings about the topic. On line 10, he states, “she smiled and spun around” to paint the picture of what the speaker is experiencing and seeing on the trampoline (Silverstein). This line also helps to further develop the childlike manner and persona that Silverstein uses a lot within his poems but also shows how he relates many of his feelings and views to objects that could be understood by a child. Yet again, Silverstein exploits his youthful tone throughout the poem showing the realization of bad timing. So, through consistent syllabic patterns and thorough imagery, Shel Silverstein can express his quirky, childish mood and view of love indirectly while incorporating how his happy endings never seemed to