Children\'s Poetry Question 1) Both

Children's Poetry

Question 1) Both Shel Silverstein and Eloise Greenfield are beloved by adults and children alike because of the playful, musical nature of their poetry. Lighthearted and lyrical, the poems of Silverstein and Greenfield are also empowering for young minds because the poets use simple words to describe complex ideas. Also, frequent use of first- and second-person narrators places the child reader front-and-center. Thus, Greenfield and Silverstein convey a positive view of childhood and through their poems recreate the world as seen through the eyes of children. For both poets, childhood entails seeing the world as absolutely ripe with potential: potential danger as well as potential fun. The minutest object like a raindrop or a gumball becomes full of life. For instance, in "Riding on the Train," the child narrator describes "raindrops crawling backwards on the window; in Silverstein's "Gumeye Ball," a gum ball transforms into a watchful eye that declares, "You don't need any more gum today." Such use of the imagination is second-nature to the child reader, who will readily relate to the sounds and imagery contained in the poems of Shel Silverstein and Eloise Greenfield.

Both Silverstein and Greenfield rely heavily on sound to captivate the child's imagination. Just as nursery rhymes must be rhythmic to be memorable, so too do poems need to have beats, rhythms, and rhymes. For Silverstein and Greenfield both, children's poetry need not follow any classical format; both write in free verse. Their poems are improvisational, the jazz equivalent of children's poetry. Silverstein's "Wild Strawberries" in reminiscent of the styling of Dr. Seuss, with its fun AABBCC rhyme scheme. An irregular number of metric feet per line means that "Wild Strawberries" has definite rhythm, an almost suspenseful feel that matches its spooky subject matter. Silverstein manages to build up the intensity of imagery through the use of rhyme and meter in "Wild Strawberries," which plays delightfully with the term "wild." The narrator imagines untamed berries to be like untamed animals: "And though they may curl up at your feet oh so sweetly, / Can you ever feel that you trust them completely?" Silverstein's "Homework Machine" is similar to "Wild Strawberries" in its rhyme scheme, but is even more irregular in its meter. The poem depicts a fantasy machine that could magically do a child's homework. The machine spews out an answer that the child narrator himself knows is wrong, mocking the idea that a machine can do a better job. Imagery in both "Wild Strawberries" and in "Homework Machine" is reflective of a child's imagination: the universal wish that homework would disappear; the tendency to take adult terms literally and therefore humorously.