Revisiting Shel Silverstein's Poetry as an Adult

Shel Silverstein's body of poetry was hotly contested in the 1980s and 90s. The push to ban Silverstein's work may seem silly to children who grew up with his poetry in the early 2000s (like me). So, what was it that made his poetry so detestable to parents and why do his books remain in classrooms today? Join me in this video essay as we find out.

0:00 Intro: The push to ban Shel Silverstein
2:02 Who was Shel Silverstein?
4:22 A Light in the Attic
5:56 Humor
7:38 Relatability
10:09 Surrealism
12:12 Deconstructed Language
15:22 Sentiment
16:40 Depth
18:20 Controversy & Profundity
25:12 Why Silverstein remains

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Editor: Khabi Javan

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#poetry #shelsilverstein #poem #poems #literature #writing #creativewriting

[RoughestDrafts]

Hey everyone. Hope you enjoyed the video and I'd love to hear if you have any additional thoughts on Silverstein. The bonus Patreon video will be coming out soon. I had some technical difficulties while filming and realized a little too late. But I think I've pinpointed the issue and should be able to take another crack at it as soon as I have the time. Until then, there will be a little deleted joke from the last video. Anyhow, thank you all, as always, for your continued support!

[ayacrystal]

When I was in kindergarten I was unfortunately the victim of a kidnapping that left me utterly traumatized for a long time. What really gets me is that I remember reading Shel Silverstein's books not a year later when I was in 1st grade. Many of the poems in this video were familiar to me, but not "Kidnapped." I assume our teacher skipped that one for obvious reasons... If only I had gotten to read that poem back then, I think it would have resonated with me and comforted me, just to see my experience written down like that. The kidnapping occurred in the middle of the school year and I vividly remember returning to school for the first time in months with an entirely changed outlook on life and newly self-deprecating inner dialogue. I remember nervously lying to my teacher, saying I had instead been "visiting somebody." But another thing I remember, is that I felt totally isolated and unique compared to my peers who couldn't even comprehend what I had gone through (and to be clear, my experience was nothing like the kidnapping described in the poem, but still!). Honestly, this is just another reason I'm vehemently anti-censorship. Silencing these kinds of works because they feature violent language does not inherently "protect" the children reading it. There are kids out there like me who *need* to know that they're not alone. They need to find works of art that express them through words they can't yet find themselves. They're being told their experiences should be silenced, locked in a box with the key thrown away. Maybe this is a little too personal and serious for a YouTube comment, maybe. That's just my 2 cents; let's be like Silverstein and treat our youth with the respect they deserve.

[hattaandromeda]

my interpretation of as a child of the “kidnapped” poem was that schools are so strict when it comes to tardiness or absences that the child needed to make up such an insane vivid story to get away with being late. When I was younger, I was frequently late to school for reasons that were almost completely outside of my control, and I would always get in trouble. I sometimes felt that the only explanation that the school would accept that wouldn’t cost me would be an outright emergency like the one in the poem

[NordicTheWolf]

"When the light turns green, you go.
When the light turns red, you stop.
But what do you do when the light turns blue
With orange and lavender spots?"

That one always stuck with me. I remember feeling that the poem was about embracing the unexpected.

[shadamyandsonamylover]

I had no idea shel Silverstein was controversial. My mom was a very conservative parent and didn’t let me do much, but she had a copy of his poems and had us learn them in school. I remember them fondly.

[gthpuppie]

No one is gonna read this, so I feel okay sharing a memory.

My father, from whom I am now estranged, loved Shel Silverstein. Had all the books, and read them to me frequently when I was small. I have a vivid memory of, when I was perhaps 8 or 9, reading A Light in the Attic while laying on our trampoline. After a while of reading, I went inside to get some water but didn't go back outside till the next day. It turns out it had rained overnight, and the poor book was a soggy mess on the trampoline. I remember being so distraught, just completely a mess; I LOVED that book, so so much, and read it to myself dozens of times, even memorized half the poems. And as a kid, I was terrified of ruining things or messing up because it almost always ended in being yelled at and strongly physically disciplined. But when I told my father what happened, he only told me it was okay, and that we have lots of books and it would be alright. I can't forgive the things he's done, but in that one little memory I think that maybe he understood my complete and utter despair in the loss of one of my favorite books and comforted me. I often speak of him as though he's died, and this little memory is one I keep for those days that I wish I had a dad.

[jonathonsmm]

I think it is hugely beneficial for children to be introduced to negative emotions and concepts like anxiety, especially in a safe environment like poetry. These kids are inevitably going to experience anxiety and sadness so if you can teach them that it's okay it happens to everyone and how to deal with it going forward, they're going to have a much better grasp on these concepts than a child who was never educated on feelings because their parents thought it would be harmful.

[lokcachte]

I grew up badly bullied, with a dysfunctional family, and a learning delay. I couldn’t read very well for all of elementary school. Silverstein’s work was deeply comforting to me as a kid, and it’s what taught me to read well.

The Giving Tree always resonated really heavily with me as a kid. I think Kidnapped did too, because I remember being awed by it. I hadn’t read anything like it at that age (7ish). There was something so impactful about being taken seriously as a reader vs a lot of the other children’s lit. It’s something special.

[perriwinkleiii]

"Whatif" is my favourite Silverstein poem that you brought up. I think it's very encouraging. By contrasting very normal, relatable fears with certain more outlandish ones in each couplet, it's like he's telling kids that all fears, or at least most, are outlandish. You shouldn't be afraid of flunking in school or having crooked teeth, any more than you should fear your head shrinking. At least, you shouldn't let that fear change the way you live your life. And he frames the Whatifs as little creatures that bring intrusive thoughts at night; he's telling you that the thoughts aren't yours, and you can get rid of them if you choose. And while the anxieties they bring are destructive, they're also normal enough to experience that kids should know how to recognize them and learn to shut the Whatifs out.

[peacemamak]

"Kidnapped" made me cry when I was a child (and still does). This poem describes my mornings in an abusive household better then I had the words for back then. Its one that made me love his writing because he knew! He KNEW what it was to be that child in an abusive household.

[potatopirate]

'Skin Stealer' became my favorite poem as a preschooler. The brilliance of Shel Silverstein includes the fact that I was able to completely understand most of Shel's poems even at that age but the meanings became more profound as I got older. To be able to fully find a piece of writing at two different ages is quite special. I appreciate Shel's writing.

Also, have to say, if your teacher could see how well loved that copy is, she wouldn't mind that you kept it. 😊

[miranthony]

Loved the video. Your reaction to the poem Kidnapped made me think of something Neil Gaiman has said about his book Coraline and kids' reactions vs parents' reactions to it. Paraphrasing, Gaiman noted that parents would often be much more unsettled by Coraline than their kids would be, and the kids would see an adventure or a fight the protagonist of the story could win where parents would see danger. I did read Kidnapped as a kid and now as an adult the way I think about it is that the visceral language is a product of a kind of imagination without regard for real world severity that kids have. Kids incorporate violence into their imagination and play but they don't have the context for the pain that would go with it and so they don't recoil from it in the same way adults do.

I also think it's relevant that Kidnapped was written in the 80s, when parenting norms were changing in reactions to fears both real and imagined about strangers giving kids drugs, kidnapping, etc. As a kid I found this poem funny and thought the humor came from the kid repeating back the kind of story their parents or teachers would tell them as an excuse to get out of school-- "don't take candy from strangers or you'll get kidnapped!" is not something that is ever or was ever likely to happen, but having it repeated constantly combined with kids generally getting a lot of enjoyment from imagined violence, and it seems a pretty logical thing (to a kid) to whip out as a late for school excuse.

[alannahrivera]

The poem nobody made me feel like he always had somebody that he was taking for granted and only realized it when they were gone

[NACHOZMusic]

Just wow. I always thought of Silverstein as "the poet that I read when I was little with the silly drawings." But I think that "Nobody" poem is the most beautiful and profound collection of words I've ever read.

[itsaUSBline]

So, as an adult, the punchline to Kidnapped really caught me off-guard and is the only one of the ones you read that made me laugh out loud. The humor is dark but I think it lands. It's such an absurdly dark story to tell in order to try and get out of trouble for such a minor thing. I guess I take it as someone making up an excuse for being late and don't really read too deeply into it other than that. As someone who watched a lot of TV and movies as a kid, being able to imagine a scenario like that seems entirely plausible for a modern child.

[metsrule]

My dad would read silverstein to me at bedtime. We would laugh, we would sing the unicorn song, we would just enjoy the meter and the rhymes.

And this morning...laying in the same bed he read those poems to me almost 30 years later. I'm brought to years by your analysis and by the depth of what was a bedtime book for me.

I've always loved silvertseins work. And now I think I'll have to read through them again. And I know I'll be reading them to my kids before bed when that day comes.

Thank you.

[loutmouth]

As a preschool teacher, I’m always excited to introduce silverstein to new kids every year. He really taps into something that they understand, and even I still enjoy his poems!

[DelTashlin]

In 1983, my elementary school music teacher wrote melodies for several poems of Silverstein. He had even received permission from Silverstein, because we ended up recording them and sendinig it to him (the teacher made this out to a really big deal). I can still remember some of the tunes, especially "There's a polar-y bear, in our fridgedaire, he likes it cuz it's cold in there..."

[GrindfatherJones]

My grandpa loved Shel Silverstein's books, and gifted the full set of his books to me as a child. I remember he'd mark his favorite poems for me to read. It was like a fun scavenger hunt. I always loved finding his little notes and inscriptions, learning who he was through his favorite poems.

I'll never forget flipping through the pages and finding his note saying this was his absolute favorite poem, "The Little Boy And The Old Man". I understood it immediately as a kid, and now, as an adult, it hurts me in so many ways that I couldn't have imagined back then. I love it so so much

[rosemarynewton]

I met Shel when I was 20 and working at PLAYBOY in the production dept. under John Mastro. Shel was friendly and approachable, but at the time, I didn’t know who or what he had to do with the magazine. Times were different then. Even though my job required me to be behind the scenes, I had to have my picture taken (for potentiality…).
Now, I am the matriarch of a family with 5 grown children and 17 grandchildren. My children enjoyed all of Shell’s books, and now those grandchildren old enough to read and understand the poems, also enjoy him. The family is a successful one, blessed with intelligence and humor as well as one motivated by Christian outreach. My kids suffered from the “what if’s”, loved the garbage poem involving Sarah Elizabeth Stout, and they now read those same poems to the next generation who will make a difference. WHO KNEW? Thanks, Shel.❤❤