by Paul Schingle

Created on: December 04, 2011   Last Updated: December 06, 2011

To those familiar with the poetry of Shel Silverstein, his verse is often light-hearted, even lightly humorous.  Sometimes, too, he'll have a gentle little life lesson for the reader.  Silverstein's poem, The Little Boy and the Old Man, gives the reader the life lesson, but perhaps with a bit less of a light-hearted approach.  All quotes are taken directly from the poem, which can be found at

www.famouspoemsandpoets.com. 

The form and format of the poem is very simple.  It almost amounts to a "call and response" type of verse.  The little boy confides a secret to the old man (i.e., "Sometimes I drop my spoon.").  The boy's "secret" is followed by a response in kind.  (i.e., "I do that too.")  The reader comes to learn that the boy and the old man have several things in common.  For instance, in addition to both dropping the spoon, it turns out that both also wet their pants and often cry. 

The poem culminates with the final four lines:

"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
"I know what you mean," said the little old man.

Of course, this not-too-subtle reminder that, while adults often ignore children, unfortunately, they also do the same thing to the elderly.  This time, with a bit less humor, Mr. Silverstein gives us a gentle reminder, that it's not a bad idea to pay attention to those who might easily be forgotten.  That lack of attention can be as painful as an unkind word or a slap.   Perhaps good advice for all to heed.

A word or two about the rhyme and meter may be in order.  Essentially, the rhyme scheme is very simple.  This is a ten-line poem with basically each set of two lines "rhyming" with each other.  (Mr. Silverstein takes liberties with his rhymes, but it doesn't deter from the quality of the poetry-for instance, he rhymes "spoon" with "too.")  The meter is wonderful.  It reads very easily, both in the mind, and read out loud.  As is often the case with Mr. Silverstein, the poetry is bubbly and light.  Sort of a slightly more modern, Dr. Seuss. 

In order to give a reader a life's lesson, the poet doesn't necessarily have to conk the reader over the head with a hammer.  If one wants to learn how to do this with poetry, one could do worse than to read Shel Silverstein's, "The Little Boy and the Old Man," as an example.

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