Submissions to the Quest of the Azure Plume

By: Lady Aleah Davis

SHEL SILVERSTEIN

by Lady Sarae Davis

Webster’s Dictionary defines poetry as "writing in a language chosen and arranged to create a particular emotional response through meaning and sound." However, I would not define poetry this way. I would define poetry as a rhyming or non- rhyming story about love, life, and death. I also found out that song lyrics are poems with a beat. The great works of Shel Silverstein relates directly to my definition of poetry. Shel Silverstein, one of the world’s most famous poets, had a fairly good life.

One of Shel’s poems in his book, Where the Sidewalk Ends was

By Shel Silverstein

This morning I jumped on my horse (a)

And went out for a ride, (b)

And some wild outlaws chased me (c)

And shot me in the side. (b)

So I crawled into a wildcat’s cave (d)

To find a place to hide, (b)

But some pirates found me sleeping there, (e)

And soon they had me tied (b [8])

To a pole and built a fire (f)

Under me - I almost cried (b)

Till a mermaid came and cut me loose (g)

And begged to be my bride, (b [12])

So I said I’d come back Wednesday (h)

But I must admit I lied. (b)

Then I ran into a jungle swamp (i)

But I forgot my guide (b [16])

And stepped into some quicksand, (j)

And no matter how I tried (b)

I couldn’t get out, until I met (k)

A water snake named Clyde, (b [20])

Who pulled me to some cannibals (l)

Who planed to have me fried. (b)

But an eagle came and swooped me up (m)

And through the air we flied, (b [24])

But he dropped me in a boiling lake (n)

A thousand miles wide. (b)

And you’ll never guess what I did then- (o)

I DIED. (b)

Shel Silverstein has a true rhyming structure here. Every other line rhymes. This poem isn’t quite believable. It sounds like the old "my dog at my homework!" or the "my baby sister/brother flushed it down the toilet!" which sounds authentic to the person who’s telling it, but not to the teacher who has already heard that excuse about a million times. The first three lines sound a little unbelievable, but would pass the test. However the fourth line does not sound realistic at all. To be shot in the side sounds deadly. Lines five through seven say he crawled in to a wild cat’s cave, where pirates found him. Two things sound unlikely in these lines. First, that he would be so comfortable, as to sleep in an untamed puma’s cave. I wouldn’t even feel comfortable sleeping in a house with feral cats (wild house cats/stray) that still have claws. Second, that pirates would come looking inland for one captive. Unlike the statement in lines nine through eleven a mermaid can’t come inland (for they are bound to the sea) unless they are on a shore. In line twenty it says that a python saved him though it would more likely eat him. I would also doubt that it would be strong enough to pull a 90-pound boy out of sticky quicksand and then to cannibals. Then again, anaconda’s can be surprising. In addition there aren’t many cannibals in the world today. And that in that moment when he was about to go into the pot an eagle would swoop down and carry him off. Besides a single eagle can’t lift that much weight. Most of the time eagles only carry off things for babies so why drop it where you can never get it back. Finally how can you be tell you this story if you died!

It sounds as if this poem were some kind of crazy excuse to get out of homework. He actually might have thought of it in school. One reason is it seems to be how some kids think. Another reason is that I got this poem from Shel’s first collection of poems, Where the Sidewalk Ends, which means that this is one of his earlier poems.

My poem is like the one above. However my poem is titled

I know of a creature that lives (A)

In eternal hysteria. (B)

A rabid chipmunk, (C)

It lives in a dump (C)

It never sleeps in its area. (B)

What is it? What is it?

This wild, crazy, being.

A flying hog,

A braying frog,

A shape shifting psychotic thing.

When scared it frees a deadly gas

The stick bit her, right hand up

As flying waffles it sees

Now bananas, no wait, peas

Evil is the coffee cup.

à

It is not alone

For friends it has.

Though I hate to admit it

I’m related to it,

My sister could be in Alcatraz.

My poem also has a rhyming structure. The second and last lines rhyme as do the third and fourth (a, b, c, c, b). This poem is about my sister. My sister gets extremely hyper around her friends. Sometimes I doubt that she’s even human! One time our friend Nickie slept at our house. As usual Aleah got hyper and started spinning around on the bed and making strange noises. Nickie called her a rabid chipmunk. She hardly ever cleans her room, and when she does it only stays clean for about a week. And because her room is messy, she never sleeps in it. That’s how I got the first stanza. I created the second verse because when she’s hyper she often acts like different things, such as a fruit bat, a dull hippie, and the rabid chipmunk. The third stanza’s first line I will not explain in detail out of courtesy. I will just say three words: on demand stink. I got the second line because I found a stick and tapped her with it. Then she claimed it gave her rabies, and started saying things like "I’m flying through the waffles.", "Now I see the banana.", and other crazy things like that. The last line on that verse is put there because she hates coffee. There are other crazies like her. Sometimes I’m not even sure if it’s safe to ride home with her and her friend, Bryce. And alas since she is my sister I’m related to her. When she gets super hyper, I think she belongs in a straight jacket inside padded walls. That’s how I got my poem.

Shel’s life was fairly good. He was born and grew up in Chicago. He wrote many books. Several of his family members died. He moved to Florida. He and I are alike and different in several ways. I hope you enjoyed my report on Shel Silverstein.

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