Shel Silverstein and Billy Collins

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the life and career of Shel Silverstein who was a famous children's author as well as a prolific songwriter, humorist, singer, playwright, adult cartoonist and poet. It discusses how his work has been embraced by millions of people of all ages since the early 1950s. It also looks at how the poet Billy Collins has earned the respect of many young people through his humorous, reader-friendly poetry and how he implemented the Poetry 180 Program, a poem a day for high school students of America.

From the Paper:

"After leaving the military, Chicago born Silverstein befriended Hugh Hefner and became a cartoonist for Playboy in 1956. Silverstein never planned on becoming a children's author as he states "I never planned to write or draw for kids. It was Tomi Ungerer, a friend of mine, who insisted... practically dragged me, kicking and screaming, into [editor] Ursula Nordstrom's office. And she convinced me that Tomi was right, I could do children's books." (poemhunter.com) His career as a children's author began with the 1963 of Uncle Shelby's Story of Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back, but it was not until The Giving Tree that he first achieved widespread fame as a children's writer. "

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