THE TALENTED
Mr. Teich
WORDS: Kara Chalmers
PICTURES: Whitney Patton
“Do you want to hear ‘Sick’?” asked
Alexander Teich during one of our
conversations, even though we’d been
talking about magic tricks.
I knew what he was referring to though,
as he’d recently introduced me to Shel
Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends
audiobook, in which the poet himself
recites - and shouts, sings and whispers
- his poems.
When Alexander first listened to the
CD when he was seven, he quickly
memorized not only the words of the
poems, but the uniquely dramatic,
humorous and sometimes very odd way
that Silverstein recites the words.
Alexander’s mother, Nicole, recognized
her son’s talent and suggested he
per form a poetry reading in Anna
Maria Elementary School’s talent show
last year. So, Alexander, dressed in
Silverstein’s outt of choice - jeans and
a white button-down shirt - recited three
poems (including Sick), complete with
Silverstein’s inections, accents, raspy
voice and weird sound effects.
“I like how he uses so much emotion,”
Alexander said of Silverstein. “He’s
basically one of my alltime favorite poets
and authors.”
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