Sheldon Allan Silverstein Accomplishments

Sheldon Allan Silverstein, born in Chicago, Illinois on September 25, 1930, was an American poet as well as a cartoonist and a singer/songwriter. Living his younger years during the Great Depression, Silverstein learned to distract himself with drawing. Later, he was accepted to the University of Illinois in 1948 where he was expelled after one year for his grades. Since Silverstein was expelled, he then decided to attend the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, but again, his style was not well molded to their program. After the year he spent at the academy, he determined he wanted to study English at the University of Roosevelt, where his talent was first recognized by Professor Robert Cosbey. Silverstein was inspired by his teacher, but their

Although these magazines are well known, Silverstein gained national recognition when he began to draw for Playboy. Hugh Hefner, publisher and editor-in-chief of Playboy, allowed Silverstein the freedom to draw cartoons however he wanted. After a year, he became head cartoonist of Playboy, and Hefner sent him around the world to gain inspiration for his illustrations. While Silverstein traveled for Playboy from 1957 to the mid 1970s, he visited a nudist colony, went to the White Sox Training Camp, had gone to different countries; such as, Cuba, Mexico, different parts of Africa, England, France, Switzerland among other countries. While in Cuba, Silverstein interviewed Fidel Castro; this was between the times surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis. Silverstein was constantly moving around during his “Playboy” years, but that did not stop him from creating even more songs, poems, plays, and cartoons. In fact, he met a book editor in 1963, Ursula Nordstrom, who influenced Silverstein to begin his work with children’s poems. Shortly after, he wrote “The Giving Tree”; one of his most famous

Further tragedies struck when Shoshanna died at the young age of 11 (April 24, 1982) from a brain aneurysm, before Matthew was even born. Finally, Silverstein himself, died seventeen years later on May 8, 1999, at 68 in Key West, FL of a heart attack. Shel Silverstein lived a full life, adding inspiration and creativity to the world of poetry. He had a view of the world that was unconventional; his upbeat poems have an ironic bleakness that parallels the phenomena of life. His experience through times of war, crisis, and traveling all play a vital role in Silverstein’s skewed yet enlightening views. For example, “The giving Tree” is a poem that some would interpret as a parent’s altruistic love for their children; giving them everything they have, for nothing in return. Just like his experience in the war showed him; the only prize soldiers got for serving in the war were their crippling affects toward their physical and mental being, just like the tree had done caring for her human child, which was not her true