Poem of the Day: ‘They’ve Put a Brassiere on a Camel’ by Shel Silverstein

With Lemony Snicket coming to the store tonight and strains of irreverent children’s literature wafting in the air, we’re going with Shel Silverstein for today’s poem of the day:  They’ve Put a Brassiere on a Camel from the collection A Light in the Attic (HarperCollins, 1981).  (Note: it was extremely difficult to choose ONE Silverstein poem to highlight.  His collections are like bags of potato chips; once you dive in, it’s impossible to stop until you’ve consumed the whole thing.)

Also required reading for children of all ages are Silverstein’s collections Falling Up, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Don’t Bump the Glump , and the stories The Giving Tree, The Missing Piece, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, and Giraffe and a Half. For the adults, there’s a great bio of Silverstein that came out a couple of years ago, A Boy Name Shel: The Life and Times of Shel Silverstein.

~

They’ve Put a Brassiere on a Camel

They’ve put a brassiere on a camel,
She wasn’t dressed proper, you know.
They’ve put a brassiere on a camel,
So that her humps wouldn’t show.
And they’re making other respectable plans,
They’re even even insisting the pigs should wear pants,
They’ll dress up the ducks if we give them the chance
Since they’ve put a brassiere on a camel.

They’ve put a brassiere on a camel,
They claim she’s more decent that way.
They’ve put a brassiere on a camel,
The camel had nothing to say.
They squeezed her into it, i’ll never know how,
They say that she looks more respectable now,
Lord knows what they’ve got in mind for the cow,
Since they’ve put a brassiere on a camel.

~Shel Silverstein

Oh, who are we kidding,  one really isn’t enough.  Here’s bonus Silverstein.

Warning

Inside everybody’s nose
There lives a sharp-toothed snail.
So if you stick your finger in,
He may bite off your nail.
Stick it farther up inside,
And he may bite your ring off.
Stick it all the way, and he
May bite the whole darn thing off.

Anteater

“A genuine anteater,”
The pet man told me dad.
Turned out, it was an aunt eater,
And now my uncle’s mad!

~

(From www.poets.org):  Shel Silverstein was born on September 25, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois and began writing and drawing at a young age.  His works include such modern classics as Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back (1963), The Giving Tree (1964), A Giraffe and a Half (1964), The Missing Piece (1976), and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O (1981). His immensely popular poetry collections are Where the Sidewalk Ends, a 1974 Michigan Young Readers Award winner; A Light in the Attic, recipient of the School Library Journal Best Books Award in 1982; Falling Up (1996); and Don’t Bump the Glump! And Other Fantasies, which was originally published in 1963 and reissued in 2008. Runny Babbit, a posthumous poetry collection of spoonerisms, was conceived and completed before his death. He died in May 1999.