The Seasons of Love lyrics in Blog 26, below, reminded me of Shel Silverstein for some reason. No better-beloved 20th-century American poet. I can attest, having taught his readers for over two decades. In fact, one of my goals was to show my children that there was more to poetry than that!
Sheldon Allan Silverstein—Shel Silverstein—1930 –1999, American writer, poet, cartoonist, songwriter, and playwright, was born into a Jewish family in Chicago in 1930. Best known for his cartoons, songs, and children’s books, his books have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold more than 20 million copies.
Silverstein began drawing at age seven by tracing the works of famous cartoonists like Al Capp (Li’l Abner, a fictional hillbilly clan in the impoverished mythical mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. The strip ran for 43 years).
“When I was a kid—12 to 14, I’d much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls, but I couldn’t play ball. I couldn’t dance. Luckily, the girls didn’t want me. Not much I could do about that. So I started to draw and to write. I was also lucky that I didn’t have anybody to copy, to be impressed by. I had to develop my own style; By the time I got to where I was attracting girls, I was already into work, and it was more important to me. Not that I wouldn’t rather make love, but the work has become a habit.”
He later said his time in college was a waste and would have been better spent traveling around the world meeting people. Drafted into the U.S. Army, he served in Japan and Korea. Returning to Chicago, Silverstein began submitting cartoons to magazines while also selling hot dogs at Chicago ballparks. His cartoons began appearing in magazines like Look and Sports Illustrated.
The cartoon on the cover of his next cartoon collection titled Now Here’s My Plan: A Book of Futilities would turn out to be one of his most famous and often-cited cartoons. In the cartoon, two prisoners are chained to the wall of a prison cell. Both their hands and feet are shackled. Silverstein was both fascinated and distressed by the amount of analysis and commentary that almost immediately began to swirl around the cartoon. “I did this cartoon because I had an idea about a funny situation about two guys.”
Was he surprised by the astronomical record of The Giving Tree, his biggest seller to date and one of the most successful children’s books in years?
“No. What I do is good. I wouldn’t let it out if I didn’t think it was.”
But The Giving Tree, which has been selling steadily since it appeared almost 10 years ago and has been translated into French, is not his own favorite among his books.
“I like Uncle Shelby’s ABZ, A Giraffe and a Half, and Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back—I think I like that one the most.”
The phrase “Renaissance man” may be overused these days, but applying it to Shel Silverstein seems apt. Not only did he produce country music hits and popular songs, but he was equally successful at poetry, short stories, plays, and children’s books. His whimsically hip fables have made him a regular on bestseller lists. Two years on the New York Times bestselling list, A Light in the Attic showed the kind of staying power that most authors never equal with their own blockbusters.
“I never read reviews because if you believe the good ones you have to believe the bad ones too. Not that I don’t care about success. I do, but only because it lets me do what I want. I was always prepared for success but that means that I have to be prepared for failure too. I have an ego, I have ideas, I want to be articulate, to communicate but in my own way. People who say they create only for themselves and don’t care if they are published . . . I hate to hear talk like that. If it’s good, it’s too good not to share. That’s the way I feel about my work. So I’ll keep on communicating, but only my way.”
Silverstein was 68 when he died of a heart attack in 1999, at his home in Key West. He is buried in the same Chicago cemetery as Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassin. After his death, Silverstein was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (2002) and the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame (2014).
Silverstein believed that written work should be read on paper. He would not allow his poems and stories to be published unless he could choose the type, size, shape, color, and quality of the paper. Being a serious book collector, he took the feel, the look, the fonts, even the binding seriously. Most of his books did not have paperback editions; he did not want his work to be diminished in any way.
Shel Silverstein met a woman from Sausalito and had a daughter, Shoshanna Jordan Hastings. They lived on this houseboat. Isn’t it just what you would have imagined?
However, Shoshanna died of a cerebral aneurysm at only 11 years of age and Susan died one day before her daughter’s fifth birthday. His book A Light in the Attic is dedicated to Susan. Silverstein never married but later met another Key West native and had a son, Matthew De Ver (1984), who later became a New York City-based songwriter/producer. According to New York Times Magazine, Silverstein material was destroyed in the tragic 2008 backlot Universal Studios fire.
Hmmm, sometimes reading about someone is a real letdown. After reading this blog, what’s your opinion?
