Author: Kenn Nesbitt

Usually, the poems I write begin with some oddball idea that pops into my head, a dragon with problems, a monster Thanksgiving dinner, or a kid with a backpack full of strange surprises. But sometimes I write poems for magazines and classrooms with a particular theme or occasion in mind. That’s exactly how today’s poem came about.

Next month marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, America’s 250th birthday, so I thought it would be fun to write a poem celebrating all the things people enjoy doing on the Fourth of July. Fireworks, sparklers, parades, barbecues, hot dogs, lemonade, bubbles, kazoo. To me, Independence Day has always felt like one big summer celebration filled with noise, color, food, and fun.

The poem first appeared in the May 2026 issue of Scholastic Storyworks 3, a multi-genre classroom magazine for third graders, with wonderful artwork by Paula Becker. I hope it helps get you in the mood for summer, fireworks, and a very big birthday celebration. This is…

Happy Birthday, U.S.A.

Happy Birthday, U.S.A.
Time to party. Time to play.
Wave a sparkler. Wave a flag.
Blow some bubbles. Play some tag.

Drink a glass of lemonade.
March beside the big parade.
Bang a drum or play kazoo.
Have a backyard barbecue.

Eat a hot dog. Eat some pie.
Watch the fireworks in the sky.
Live it up this happy day.
Happy Birthday, U.S.A.

— Kenn Nesbitt

As the school year comes to an end, lots of kids are counting down the days until summer vacation. There’s something exciting about the last few weeks of school: turning in your books, cleaning out your desk, and looking forward to sunny days, sleeping in, and all the fun that summer brings. But the end of the school year can also feel a little bittersweet. Along with saying goodbye to homework and classrooms, you’re also saying goodbye, for a little while at least, to teachers, classmates, playgrounds, and all the routines that made up your year.

That’s what inspired me to write this poem. I wanted to capture that mixture of feelings: the excitement of summer vacation and the realization that there are things about school you’ll actually miss when the year is over. So this poem became a list of goodbyes to some of the little moments and places that make a school year memorable.

Goodbye School Year

Goodbye school year.
You were fun.
But once more
your time is done.

Goodbye classroom.
Goodbye bell.
Goodbye Friday
show-and-tell.

Goodbye playground.
Goodbye slide.
Goodbye games
we played outside.

Goodbye gym
and music too.
Goodbye homework.
(Done with you!)

Goodbye friends.
I’ll miss you all.
Meet you back here
in the fall.

— Kenn Nesbitt

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

Mother’s Day is always celebrated on the second Sunday in May, and since I usually post new poems on my website on Mondays, I started wondering what kind of poem would make sense to share the day after Mother’s Day. That’s when the title “Mother’s Day Disaster” popped into my head. The idea of everything going hilariously wrong on Mom’s special day made me laugh right away, so I knew I had to write it.

In this poem, the narrator tries hard to make Mother’s Day special, but every good intention somehow turns into a catastrophe instead. From terrible breakfasts to overflowing bubble baths to even bigger disasters, the day quickly spins completely out of control. This is…

Mother’s Day Disaster

Mother’s Day was yesterday.
I’m really glad it’s done.
The day was a disaster
when it should have just been fun.

I picked my mom some flowers
from her garden. She got mad.
The slimy scrambled eggs I made
were sickeningly bad.

The oatmeal in the microwave?
Oh, man, did it explode!
The bubble bath I drew for her?
The bathtub overflowed.

About the time I thought that things
could not get any worse,
I tripped and dumped a pot of coffee
straight into her purse.

The day was such a trainwreck
that I wrote this note to say,
my dad should be concerned because
next month is Father’s Day.

— Kenn Nesbitt

Most of the poems I write start with ideas I come up with on my own. But I also regularly write poems for magazines, textbooks, and even standardized tests for schools, where I’m given a specific assignment to work from.

I wrote this poem at the request of my editor at Scholastic Storyworks 1, a multi-genre magazine for first grade. She was putting together an issue focused on phonological awareness and asked if I could write a poem that repeats a beginning consonant blend, something like “fr-fr-freezing,” where kids can really hear and play with the sound.

I ended up writing a few different options, including one about being freezing cold and another about a puppy that likes to “gr-gr-growl.” But this was the one they chose. I liked the idea of using a slushy because it gave me a fun, silly situation where repeating the “sl” sound—slurp, slow, slushy—felt completely natural and playful.

This poem originally appeared in the December 2025/January 2026 issue of Storyworks 1, and it’s meant to be read out loud. The more you lean into those “sl-sl-sl” sounds, the more fun it becomes, and the more it helps young readers hear how those blends work. I hope you enjoy it. This is…

How to Drink a Slushy

If you want to drink a slushy,
there is something you should know.
You shouldn’t slurp it quickly.
You should sl- sl- slurp it slow.

If you try to slurp it quickly,
you will sl- sl- sl- sl- slurp,
then sl- sl- sl- sl- slurp some more,
then sl- sl- sl- sl- BURP!

— Kenn Nesbitt

Every once in a while, I find myself coming back to one of my favorite kinds of poems to write. I especially enjoy creating characters who are terrible at the one thing they are supposed to be good at. There is something inherently funny about that idea. Over the years, I have written poems like “The Pirate of Pickletown,” “Lorenzo Liszt, Non-Scientist,” and “Steve the Superhero,” all featuring characters who somehow manage to get everything completely wrong.

This poem began the same way. I started thinking about a race car driver, someone whose job is to go fast and win races, and wondered what it would be like if he did the exact opposite. Instead of speeding ahead, what if he took his time, got distracted, and treated the race more like a leisurely Sunday drive?

This is how Rusty Roads came to be. As I wrote, I had fun imagining all the little things he might do differently from a typical race car driver, especially the kinds of habits that would make him a very polite, very careful, and very unsuccessful racer.

I hope you enjoy meeting Rusty as much as I enjoyed writing about him. You may even find that he has a pretty good reason for doing things his own way. This is…

Rusty Roads

The race car driver Rusty Roads has never won a race.
In fact, the best he’s ever done is thirty-seventh place.
He likes to find the scenic route and take it nice and slow.
He’ll stop to ask directions then forget which way to go.

He’ll honk the horn and flash the lights, but then forget to steer.
He’ll holler, “Vroom, vroom, vroom!” while driving in the lowest gear.
He slams the brakes at every turn but barely taps the gas.
He likes to smile and wave at other drivers as they pass.

He’ll pull off on the shoulder when he wants to have a nap.
He’s proud to take his time and come in last on every lap.
And if you ask him why, without a moment’s hesitation,
he’ll tell you, “Life’s about the journey, not the destination.”

— Kenn Nesbitt