Playing Against Type/Poetry

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Examples of Playing Against Type in Poetry include:

  • Poets can do this too, and have been doing this long before typecasting was patented. Remember Edgar Allan Poe? The guy who wrote dark poems like "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee"? He also once wrote A Valentine.
  • And then there's ee cummings, who usually wrote poems with a gentle tone, writing something like this.
  • So you think Shel Silverstein is a children's poet, Do You? Before he wrote and illustrated children's poetry, he was a cartoonist for Playboy, and wrote songs like "The Cover of the Rolling Stone", "A Boy Named Sue" and "I Got Stoned and I Missed It". I dare you to sing his "Mermaid" to your kids.