Shel Silverstein Essay

738 Words3 Pages
"I was so lucky that I didn't have anyone to copy, be impressed by. I had developed my own style, I was creating before I knew there were a Thurber, a Benchley, a Price and a Steinberg. I never saw their work until I was around thirty." Shel Silverstein is one of the few writers that were able to make their own style of writing and a young age. Shel Silverstein is known for his use of humor and exaggeration in most of his work. This use of humor and exaggeration is found in poems such as Sarah Cynthia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out, The Dirtiest Man, and I’m Sick. Sarah Cynthia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out is a poem from the classic collection of poems called “Where the Sidewalk Ends”. This poem is about a girl who simply would not take her garbage out. “The garbage reached across the state, from New York to Golden Gate” (Silverstein). He used exaggeration to show that the garbage just kept piling up and the pile was huge. Shel used “New York to Golden Gate” to compare the size of the garbage build up. “The garbage finally reached so high it touched the sky!” (Silverstein) This line from the poem is similar to the other one. It’s just saying how the garbage reached higher instead of wider. “It went down the hallway and raised the roof” (Silverstein). He uses exaggeration here to show that the garbage pile is growing. It was growing so far that is was going out of Sarah’s house. In the end, Silverstein writes, “But children, remember Sarah Stout and always take the garbage out!” using the poem as a humorous way to tell kids to listen to their parents and to take the garbage out. The Dirtiest Man also by Shel Silverstein is another poem that features examples of exaggeration. “I can’t see my shirt it’s so covered with dirt. My ears have enough to grow flowers” (Silverstein). In this poem, a fictional character named Dirty Dan is the “Dirtiest man
Open Document