Victoria Gonzalez
Ms. Rachid and Ms. Arteaga
Reading 8-1
14 October 2014
"The Gnome, The Gnat and The Gnu " by Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein, born September 25 1930, started writing poems when he was twelve years old. He started writing poems because he had no athletic ability and couldn't play with other boys so he kept himself entertained by writing funny poems. He began developing his own technique to write poems because he had no one to mimic since he did not know the style of any famous poets. Silverstein was in the military and in his time there he worked making cartoons for Pacific-based military publications called "Pacific Stars and Stripes" . He later worked for other magazines as a cartoonist and then he was convinced by Ursula Nordstrom to start writing for children. One of his most famous books was "The Giving Tree" which was published in 1964.
He also made the books "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "A Light in the Attic" and many more. He also made plays, one of his most famous play was "The Lady or The Tiger Show". He died May 10 1999.
The poem is about a boy who sees a gnome hitting a gnat that is bitting his gnu. The man tells the gnome to stop hitting the gnat because it hasn't done anything to him, and the gnome says that he didn't know that what he was doing was wrong.
I believe the speaker of this poem is a boy, because he doesn't speak right and he doesn't spell words right.
The Gnome, The Gnat and The Gnu
I saw an ol' gnome
Take a gknock at a gnat
Who was gnibbling the gnose of his gnu.
I said, "Gnasty gnome, Gnow, stop doing that.