“Listen to the Mustn’ts” from Where the Sidewalk Ends Listen to the Mustn’ts, child, listen to the Don’ts. “Skin Stealer” from A Light in the Attic This evening I unzipped my skin And carefully unscrewed my head, Exactly as I always do When I prepare myself for bed.
I think I’ll take my shoes off And sit around in the shade. “It’s Hot!” from A Light in the Attic It’s hot! I can’t get cool, I’ve drunk a quart of lemonade. “Needles and Pins” from Falling Up Needles and pins, Needles and pins, Sew me a sail To catch me the wind. “The Loser” from Where the Sidewalk Ends Mama said I’d lose my head If it wasn’t fastened on. “Smart” from Where the Sidewalk Ends My dad gave me one dollar bill ‘Cause I’m his smartest son, And I swapped it for two shiny quarters ‘Cause two is more than one! “Where the Sidewalk Ends” from 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, “Whatif” from A Light in the Attic Last night, while I lay thinking here, Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear And pranced and partied all night long And sang their same old Whatif song: So although Silverstein is no longer with us (he passed away in 1999), here's a look back at 20 of his funniest, weirdest, most inspiring and most memorable poems: “Sick” from Where the Sidewalk Ends My hip hurts when I move my chin, My belly button’s caving in, My back is wreched, my ankle’s sprained, My ‘pendix pains each time it rains. And those drawings! A self-trained illustrator, Silverstein had a visual style that was a lot like his writing - a little loose, a little sloppy, and completely indelible. He captured the innocence of a child's imagination without talking down to kids, or being trite and sentimental.
Silverstein veered from fanciful, to gentle, to inspirational. Sure, some of the nursery rhymes you had been singing before were a little dark, but the stuff in Where the Sidewalk Ends was on a whole different level - absurd and ironic, combining sharp wit, gross-out humor and heartbreaking pathos. Reading Silverstein for the first time is a mind-altering experience. But for Gen-Xers, Millennials, and Gen-Zers, he's the mad genius behind poetry collections like Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and Falling Up, as well as the classic children's story The Giving Tree. 25, 1930, had a long and varied career that involved working as a lead cartoonist for Playboyand writing songs for artists like Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. But when you look back on who really unlocked the power and potential of poetry for you, there's probably only one answer: Shel Silverstein.
We start exposing children to it from the moment they're born, through lullabies, Dr. Verse is an inextricable part of human existence.
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