The Subversive Scribbler

Remembering Shel Silverstein, Playboy’s Beloved “Proto Punk” Poet and Cartoonist.

- Sascha Cohen

IT WAS A POEM ABOUT A GIRL WHO WANTED a pony that first landed Shel Silverstein in trouble. Published in his 1981 collection of illustrated children’s poetry, A Light in the Attic, “Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony” angered parents for its supposed glorification of suicide: Horse- obsessed Abigail stops eating and sleeping and eventually dies, “All because of a pony / That her parents wouldn’t buy.” Or maybe it was Silverstein’s cheeky closing lines that had truly upset the moms and dads who pushed to ban the poem: “This is a good story / To read to your folks / When they won’t buy / You something you want.”

For years Silverstein’s work hovered near the top of the American Library Association’s list of most-challenged books. Community groups in seven states attempted to ban from elementary classrooms A Light in the Attic and an earlier volume, Where the Sidewalk Ends, for being “suggestive,” “sick” and “disturbing to young minds.” Given the anti-authoritarian spirit that animates much of Silverstein’s writing, the pushback is perhaps unsurprising. With his carnivalesque illustrations and tales of misbehaving, manipulative kids, Silverstein was a disruptor within the genre of children’s literature. Yet his distinctly mischievous streak would be familiar to those aware of his earlier work as an artist catering to more mature readers.

A longtime doodler, Silverstein walked into Playboy’s Chicago office one day in 1956 and dropped off an unsolicited portfolio. Upon seeing his work, Hugh Hefner quickly bought several drawings for the magazine. It was the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration, as well as a lifelong friendship.