Cartoonist, songwriter, and children's author Shel Silverstein (1930–1999) was born in Chicago, Illinois, and died in Key West, Florida. His verse collections for children, Where the Sidewalk Ends (Harper and Row, 1974) and A Light in the Attic (Harper and Row, 1981), have sold tens of millions of copies. As a songwriter he wrote A Boy Named Sue, recorded by Johnny Cash, and The Cover of the Rolling Stone. He won a Grammy Award for A Boy Named Sue in 1970. For nearly two decades he was a cartoonist for Playboy magazine, where his work appeared from 1957.
Who was your "gateway poet," the poet whose first book or poem made you want to write?
As an elementary student, I loved reading Shel Silverstein's books aloud to my grandmother. I loved the play in them and the musicality. I think the message I got from his books was that poetry could be fun, and that just because it was silly didn't mean it didn't have a dark underbelly. In fact, play is one way to engage with what we would rather resist. That truth is still at the heart of why I write poems--what a paradox that we can meet pain and heartache and find, somehow, small pleasure.