by Ayden W

 

Where the sidewalk ends is an excerpt from the book Where the Sidewalk Ends written by Shel Silverstein written in 1974. The poem, Where the Sidewalk Ends, is about how children can live in such a horrible world and still see the beauty in it. The poem is also about how adults wish that they could see past the horrible parts of the world and go back to the mindset of a child. The images that I selected for my double exposure connect to my poem as I used a smoky orange and black polluted world. The polluted world represents the world that the adults see, which is why I put an adult inside of the pollution. The adult is seeing what all adults see and have been forced by society to see, pollution and destruction of their once beautiful world. The child within the man is about how he wishes to go back and see the world through his young eyes; “Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black” (Silverstein, line 7). The lush forest that was within the child represents the world that children see. Children see the world as a beautiful place meant for exploring, they want to find out all its hidden secrets. Then adulthood comes without them realising it, and the world is no longer beautiful. The world turned into a place where people dumped their garbage, and others had to pay the price. The theme of this poem is growing up, about the difference between how adults see the world for what it is and how children see what they imagine the world to be. This poem is showing the changes of perspective between child and adult. 

All images are from Unsplash