Author: Kenn Nesbitt

Welcome to Poetry4kids. I’m Kenn Nesbitt. As a student, I remember being so tired in school some days that I would fall asleep at my desk and the teacher would have to wake me up. I was never so tired in the morning that I went to school in my pajamas or bedsheet or blankets. But a friend of mine actually did this once when she was in college. She was so sleepy that she woke up at the very last minute, wrapped her sheet around herself and walked to class.

Recalling this recently, I thought it might be funny to write a poem about it. I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Poetry4kids. I’m Kenn Nesbitt. With Halloween just around the corner, I wanted to write a poem about the holiday. I had already written a poem about spooky monsters called “The Monsters’ Thanksgiving,” so this time I thought it would be fun to come up with a poem about trick-or-treating. I imagined creating a time-saving device to help collect more candy, and the idea of an army of trick-or-treating robots came to me.

The very next day, I saw a headline that read, “Inventor Builds Six Robot Copies of Himself, Uses One to Give Speeches and Take Questions From Audience.” I took that as a sign that my idea was timely—and that this was definitely a poem I needed to write! I hope you enjoy it.

Robot Halloween

I built a hundred robots, and
I thought it would be neat
to send them out on Halloween
and have them trick-or-treat.

They went in all directions
as they sped from door to door,
collecting treats at every house,
then moving on for more.

My robots were efficient.
They were speedy and polite.
They quickly went to every single
house in town that night.

They brought their load of candy home
and dumped it on the floor.
It filled the house so fast,
it started spraying out the door.

An avalanche of candy poured
across our porch and lawn.
Our yard was buried instantly.
Our plants and fence were gone.

We may no longer have a house
or yard, but it appears
our candy pile is big enough
to last for many years.

It turns out having robots
trick-or-treat is pretty handy.
Just make sure you have room to store
a hundred tons of candy.

— Kenn Nesbitt

Ideas for poems can come from lots of different places. Sometimes when I write a poem, the idea starts with a single word or a phrase. In this case, I was thinking about the upcoming holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Halloween made me think of monsters, including Frankenstein’s monster, which made me think of “Frankenstein’s Thanksgiving.” It occurred to me that it might be fun to write a single poem that combines Halloween and Thanksgiving into a single holiday. This poem is the result.

The Monsters’ Thanksgiving

When monsters spend Thanksgiving
at the house of Frankenstein,
the feast is full of frankenfoods.
That’s how they like to dine.

They each will bring a favorite dish
and share it with the group.
The Blob provides the Jell-o and
the Fly supplies the soup.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon
makes slimy stewed tomatoes.
The Wolfman and Godzilla share
their monster mash potatoes.

The Zombie drops some finger foods.
The Thing makes lots of things.
The Phantom of the Opera serves
some stuffing as he sings.

The Mummy brings a bubbling bowl
of gravy from his grave.
And Dracula doles out dessert…
blood pudding from his cave.

They do this each November, and
do not invite the living.
They simply dine with Frankenstein
to celebrate Franksgiving.

— Kenn Nesbitt

Every now and then, there’s a day when you just don’t want to get out of bed. Rather than take on the new day, you just want to stay under the blankets and sleep. I wrote this poem because I started thinking about all the wild, imaginative reasons someone might have for staying in bed—things that are so strange, they would drive just about anyone back to bed. While you can take this poem at face value, reading it as though these crazy things actually happened to the narrator, you should also consider other possibilities. Perhaps the narrator is still asleep and dreaming. Or maybe they’ve just come up with a harebrained excuse to avoid facing the day. No matter how you interpret it, sometimes it feels like it’s just easier to stay under the covers when things get too weird!

Bed Instead

This morning I woke up
and what did I see?
My houseplants were waving
good morning to me.

I thought this was odd, so
I looked all around.
My sneakers were tap-dancing
down on the ground.

My clothing was strolling.
My books flew like birds.
My games were patrolling
my bedroom in herds.

My toys and my backpack
were having a fight.
They looked like they must have
been at it all night!

If anyone needs me,
just tell them I said
it’s too weird today so
I’ve gone back to bed.

— Kenn Nesbitt

I recently had a “half birthday,” which falls in August since my real birthday is in February. Because of this, I was thinking about writing a half-birthday poem. By the time I started working on it, it was already September. The line “I never can remember if my birthday’s in September” popped into my head because September rhymes so nicely with “remember”—and also with December and November. I liked the way that line sounded, so I created this poem with that idea as the starting point.

When thinking about half birthdays, it also occurred to me that since it might be fun to celebrate your birthday twice a year, it could be even more fun to celebrate it three or four times a year, or even more often.

Oh, and by the way, the rhythm of this poem is the same as one of my all-time favorite poems, “In Praise of Llamas” by Arthur Guiterman. It was fun to use that familiar rhythm to explore the idea of never quite remembering my birthday—and deciding how often to celebrate it!

When’s My Birthday?

I never can remember
if my birthday’s in September
or in January, August, or July.
Or it could be in December,
or October, or November.
I’ve forgotten when it is.
I don’t know why.

And it may be on the seventh,
or the third, or the eleventh,
though I know that sounds a little bit absurd.
Plus it might be a Sunday,
or a Thursday, or a Monday,
on the seventeenth, or thirtieth, or third.

Now, while some might find this vexing,
or confusing, or perplexing,
I make lemons into lemonade this way:
Since I never can remember
if my birthday’s in September,
I just celebrate my birthday every day.

— Kenn Nesbitt