Poetry Essay example

Submitted By IsaiahReyes1
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The Meaning Behind Poetry As folks read children's literature to their children, nieces, nephews and grand children. They think nothing of it but just a typical story for children's entertainment. There is actually much more to it then just smiles and laughter. The literature that we are learning in our Literature 114 class is “Subversive Children’s Literature,” as the typical adult reads this literature he or she may not know exactly what they are reading. For someone who may not know, subversive literature makes the attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power and change ones belief. Author Alison Lurie says that “ We should take children’s literature seriously because it is sometimes subversive: because its values are not always those of the conventional adult world” (Lurie). She says that the books express the imaginative, unconventional and non commercial view on the world. In this essay the focus will be on two poems written by Shel Silverstein. The Title of the poems are “The Long haired boy” and “The One Who Stayed” . Both poems are from Shel Silverstein’s book “Where The Sidewalk Ends” . Silverstein does a great job of expressing children's emotion in his poetry, it’s likes hes a kid in an adults body. We are all said to still have that childish personality in ourselves no matter what age we are at. His poetry is very entertaining to children but also to adults, his poetry has a distinctive message behind it all. In our first poem “The long Haired Boy” author subverts acceptance and bullying into his poem. There was a young boy who had very long hair, all the kids would laugh at him and point. The poem says that in the small town he lived in, all people would do was stare and point at him. Later the author does a great job with emotion, the boys starts to cry and cover his hair so he wouldn't be made fun of. At the end of the poem, there quite a twist Silverstein added. It says that the boy’s hair started to flap and flap as he started to fly away from the town. The people realized something unique in him as if he had magic powers because he could fly. As they seen him fly away the town shouted “hooray” someone from the town actually called him a hero. Despite the things they were shouting to the boy, he did not come down. His hair kept flapping until he got lost in the sky without any visibility. In my perspective, this has to do a lot with acceptance and bullying. Kids today get bullied so much, not only at school but even over the internet and social media. The child from the poem had very long hair which made him different then others, just like some kids today. Kids today may have different characteristics and automatically get taunted for it. Some kids who get bullied area unable to cope with it and it sometimes leads to suicide. In the ending of the poem where it says that the kid kept flapping away and never came back, to me it was as if he committed suicide. He couldn't take the bulling anymore, so he took his own life. As the poem says he kept going up and up, to me it was maybe heaven, thats where he was going because he was dead. It can mean man different things because each person has their own perspective. Acceptance plays a big part in the poem, because as a human being, we all hate rejection and that what most of the world is afraid of. We as people do certain things to feel accepted by others, weather it be from the clothes you wear or who you hang around with. Everyone wants to be that cool kid, but kids should know that whatever imperfections they have, its okay. Being different is perfectly fine, Silverstein did a great job getting that messages of acceptance through this poem. The second poem
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