When I was a kid, I loved books where somebody discovered a hidden world in a place where it absolutely shouldn’t exist. Stories like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth, and later Gregor the Overlander all begin with something ordinary—a rabbit hole, a whirlwind, a tollbooth, a laundry-room grate—that suddenly opens into someplace strange, mysterious, and much bigger than it ought to be. I think those kinds of stories stick with us because they make the world feel more magical. They suggest that adventure might be hiding anywhere if we’re curious enough to go looking for it.
That was the feeling I wanted to capture in “At the Bottom of My Backpack.” Most kids know what it’s like to have a backpack or locker full of mysterious stuff buried at the bottom; old papers, forgotten snacks, missing pencils, and things you could swear weren’t in there yesterday. So I started wondering: what if a backpack wasn’t just messy? What if it was actually impossibly deep? What if it kept going and going like a cave or an underground world?
Once I had that idea, the poem became a kind of adventure story. Mostly, though, I hope this poem encourages readers to imagine that even the most ordinary objects might contain surprises. After all, if a backpack can hide an entire world inside it, who knows what else we’ve been overlooking? This is…
At the Bottom of My Backpack
At the bottom of my backpack,
there’s a spot I cannot see.
It’s not that it’s invisible.
It’s just too deep for me.
It’s underneath my books and lunch
and pens and paper clips,
below some candy wrappers
and an empty bag of chips.
I thought I caught a glimpse of it.
But was it really there?
I stuck my arm down in my pack,
but all I felt was air.
I next unzipped it all the way
and pulled it open wide,
then grabbed my trusty flashlight
as I stuck my head inside.
I still could not quite make it out.
It seemed so far away,
and so I climbed completely in
and crawled around… all day!
I wandered through a forest
made of pencils tall as trees,
then down a homework mountain,
notebooks flapping in the breeze.
It seemed to go on endlessly.
I even met some guy
who said he’d be there decades
but could not remember why.
As things kept getting weirder,
I decided I should leave,
and scampered through a tunnel
like a giant hoodie sleeve.
I crept through tangled charger cords.
I stumbled all about.
I’m still inside my backpack
looking for the way back out.
I never thought that I would find
myself in this position.
I’ve left this note behind to say
please send a rescue mission!
— Kenn Nesbitt
