Category: Podcast

I’ve always loved performing. When I was a kid, I once put on a magic show for my family when I was seven years old. I even rented a cape and a top hat for the occasion. Unfortunately, the show didn’t go very well. Everyone kept shouting out how the tricks were done, which made it hard to feel very mysterious.

Still, that love of performing stuck with me. One of the reasons I fell in love with poetry in the first place was because my father used to sing silly songs and recite nonsense poems at home. Watching him perform made me realize how much fun words can be when you say them out loud.

Because of that, I love writing poems about performing, whether it’s singing, karaoke, student talent shows, or just putting on a show for anyone who happens to be nearby. That idea is what inspired this poem. I hope it makes you smile. This is…

Toothbrush Karaoke

While brushing my teeth after breakfast today,
I looked at my toothbrush and, what can I say?
It looked like a microphone there in my hand.
I thought of a song from my new favorite band.

I strolled to the living room singing that song.
My brother, surprised, started clapping along.
My sister stood up and applauded my tune.
She begged me to keep singing all afternoon.

I ran to my room where I sang to my frog.
My singing and dancing delighted our dog.
I chanted and rapped as I ran down the hall,
to croon to the mirror we had on the wall.

And that’s when my mom and dad walked in the door,
complaining of slobber all over the floor.
They said my performance was totally cool,
except for the minty-fresh puddles of drool.

— Kenn Nesbitt

When my kids were in elementary school, they loved taking rules very literally. If I told my son not to touch his sister, he would immediately find the exact spot where he could stand as close as possible without actually touching her, and think it was hilarious. Technically, he was following the rule, even if he was clearly missing the spirit of it.

That kind of literal thinking has always made me laugh, especially when it comes to rules at school. Kids hear a rule, take it at face value, and then use a lot of creativity to follow it exactly, sometimes in ways adults never expected. It’s not about breaking the rules; it’s about finding all the tiny spaces around them.

I realized there might be a poem hiding in that idea, especially if the rule was followed with complete sincerity… and a whole lot of imagination. That’s where this poem came from.

I hope it makes you smile, especially if you’ve ever known a kid who was very good at following rules, just not quite the way they were intended. This is…

No Running in the Hall

They said, “No running in the hall,”
and so I didn’t run at all.
They didn’t say, “Don’t skip and prance.”
They didn’t say, “Don’t disco dance.”

And so, you may have seen me hop,
or spiral like a spinning top,
or zig and zag from side to side,
or spread my arms to fly and glide.

I might have marched. I might have stomped.
I might have wriggled, rolled, and romped.
I might have done a funky strut.
I might have wagged my you-know-what.

I might have slid across the floor,
or maybe moonwalked through a door,
or got down on my knees to crawl.
But, hey, I didn’t run at all.

— Kenn Nesbitt

I’ve always loved building snowmen. When my kids were younger, we used to spend whole winter afternoons rolling giant snowballs around the yard, hunting for the perfect sticks for arms, and deciding how he should be dresses and decorated. Which hat would work best? Should he have a scarf or a tie? Does he really need a carrot nose or would a button work just as well?

This year, I started thinking about how much personality a snowman seems to have by the time you’re done with it. You give it a hat, a scarf, and a pipe, and suddenly it feels like a character—someone who might have opinions about your artistic decisions. I wondered what would happen if a snowman actually could share those opinions.

That little idea was enough to spark this poem. The moment I imagined a half-finished snowman watching me choose its accessories, I knew I wanted to write about it. What would a snowman say? What would it care about? What would it absolutely not want? I hope you enjoy the result.

Snow’s Nose

I made a new snowman
out in our front yard.
It didn’t take long and
it wasn’t too hard.

I stacked up some snowballs.
I gave them a pat,
then threw on a scarf,
and a pipe, and a hat.

I sculpted some feet
from a little more snow,
and stuck in some sticks
where his arms ought to go.

I added some coal
for his buttons and eyes,
and that’s when he spoke,
to my utter surprise.

He said to me, “Thanks for
the hat, scarf, and pipe.
The sticks that you picked
are exactly my type.

“Now bring me some carrots.
You picked all my clothes,
but really, I don’t want you
picking my nose.”

— Kenn Nesbitt

I love writing poems about the holiday season, so I wanted to start December off with a new funny poem about Santa Claus. To get myself in the right festive mood, I reread Clement Clarke Moore’s classic poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” better known as “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.” As I was reading, a couple of lines jumped out at me:

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

I couldn’t help noticing something amusing about the word “soot.” It looks like it ought to rhyme with “suit,” but it doesn’t. “Soot” actually rhymes with “put” and “foot,” not with “suit” or “boot.” Still, that contrast made me laugh, and I thought there had to be a poem hiding inside that idea somewhere.

So I first decided to call it “Soot Suit,” and then sat down to see what I could come up with. And this is the result, my newest holiday poem.

Soot Suit

When Santa came to visit us
on Christmas Eve this year,
his eyes were bright and merry
and his face was full of cheer.

He carried toys and presents
in a sack upon his back.
But Santa wasn’t dressed in red.
Instead, his suit was black.

Without his bright red coat and hat
he looked a little weird.
He also had some smudges
on his cheeks and on his beard.

We asked if he was trying out
a new and different style.
He looked down at his blackened suit
then answered with a smile.

He said, “My suit’s not really black,
as maybe you could tell.
It only looks that way because
your chimney soots me well.”

— Kenn Nesbitt

One question students often ask me is what my favorite “kind” of poem is. That is, they want to know if I like haiku or limericks or diamantes or some other type of poem best. The word poets use to describe these different kinds of poems is “form.” A form is kind of poem defined by a set of rules, which might include a certain rhyme scheme, number of lines, syllable count and so on.

The truth of the matter is that I don’t normally write in poetic forms, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would either be a funny form like limericks or clerihews, or it would be the acrostic, where the first letters of each line spell out a word or phrase.

With Thanksgiving Day (in the United States) coming soon, this week I was putting together a program on how to write “thankful” poems. One example I gave was a simple acrostic on the word “thanks.” I enjoyed that simple example enough that I decided to create a longer acrostic using the word “Thanksgiving,” listing things that you or I might be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day.

I hope you enjoy it!

Thanksgiving

These are things I’m thankful for:
Hugs from people I adore.
Apple cider. Pumpkin pie.
Next-door neighbors dropping by.
Kicking balls around the yard.
Singing, laughing, playing cards.
Glasses clinking for a toast.
Ice cream sundaes. Yummy roast.
Visitors from out of town.
Inside, children running ’round.
Napping after food and play.
Giving thanks, Thanksgiving Day.

 — Kenn Nesbitt

Before we begin, there’s something I haven’t talked about very much. Most people assume I was born in the twentieth century and grew up like everyone else—going to school, learning poetry, all of that. But the truth is a bit more complicated.

I’m actually from the year 3017.

That’s right—thirty-seventeen. A full millennium in the future. Back home, time travel is fairly common. It’s not something people make a big fuss about, either. It’s more like catching bus. You can take a weekend trip to ancient Egypt, visit your great-great-great-great-grandparents, or hop forward to see how your favorite TV show eventually ends. Most time travelers don’t stay very long in the past, but I’ve always been curious. I wanted to see what life was like a thousand years ago, so I climbed into my trusty time machine and set the dial for the early 2000s.

Unfortunately—well, I won’t spoil the poem—but let’s just say things didn’t go exactly as planned.

What you’re about to hear is a completely accurate, totally factual account of what happened next. Some people think I wrote it as fiction, but I assure you: every word is true. And yes, time machines in the future are usually more reliable than this.

My Time Machine Is Broken

I came here from the future
in my trusty time machine.
I flew almost a thousand years
from thirty-seventeen.

I thought it would be fun to see
the far-off distant past.
It never had occurred to me
this trip might be my last.

But now I’m getting worried.
It’s a serious concern.
My time machine has broken down
so now I can’t return.

I traveled too far back in time,
which now I quite regret,
since time machine repair shops
haven’t been invented yet.

— Kenn Nesbitt

It’s the middle of autumn, and the weather is definitely changing. The leaves have mostly fallen from the trees, and it’s been cold and raining for the past few days where I live. I thought I’d write something about this change of seasons—but in a slightly unexpected way.

This poem starts out as a simple bike ride through the park, but things take a strange turn once the weather begins to shift. Here is…

Dark Park

I went for a ride
on my bike in the park.
Some clouds started forming.
It quickly got dark.

The rain pounded down
as the wind began blowing.
The weather turned colder,
and soon it was snowing.

I shivered and shook
as a blizzard was forming,
and thunder and lightning
were suddenly storming.

I tried to escape,
but my bike wouldn’t go.
The wheels were both frozen
and stuck in the snow.

I jumped off my bike
and ran out of the park.
The sky was all sunny,
not cloudy and dark.

It’s really a puzzle
why out here it’s nice,
but inside the park
it’s all snowbanks and ice.

I’ve taken a breath,
and I’m counting to ten,
preparing myself
to go back in again.

I might sound insane,
like a crazed maniac.
I don’t really care, though—
I want my bike back.

— Kenn Nesbitt

It’s October, and the weather has finally started turning cold. The leaves are changing colors and beginning to fall, swirling and spinning in the breeze. I’ve already written a couple of Halloween poems this month, so I thought I’d do something a little different, something that simply celebrates the season itself.

The idea for the ending of this poem came to me almost instantly, and I knew I had to write the whole thing just to build up to that moment. I hope you enjoy it.

The Leaves Are Falling Of the Trees

The leaves are falling off the trees.
It’s fun to watch them whirl.
It only takes the slightest breeze
to make them swoop and swirl.

They twist and spin, they dip and dance.
Their flights are acrobatic.
They do this yearly, not by chance;
instead, it’s autumn-matic.

— Kenn Nesbitt

I came up with the last word of this poem earlier this year. It’s what’s called a portmanteau word, which means a made-up word created by blending two real words together, like combining breakfast and lunch to make the word “brunch.”

Now, at the time, it was the beginning of June, and writing a Halloween poem in the middle of spring didn’t make much sense. So I just jotted the word down in my notes and waited. Now that October is here, I thought it was the perfect time to see if I could turn that one silly word into a whole poem, and this is what I came up with.

Sticky Sweet Trick-or-Treat

I went trick-or-treating.
I only got stuff
with marshmallows in it
or marshmallow fluff.

My basket was filled up
with Rice Krispies Treats,
s’mores, Peeps, and Moon Pies,
and other such sweets,
like cocoa with marshmallows
floating on top,
a rocky road bar,
and a marshmallow pop.

I’m not sure what happened.
I guess this must mean
I went trick-or-treating
on Marshmalloween.

— Kenn Nesbitt

When October comes around each year, I love writing Halloween poems—especially about monsters, haunted houses, and trick-or-treating. Some of these poems are a little spooky, but most are just meant to be silly and fun, like this one. I started imagining what it might be like if Dracula and his monster friends hosted a Halloween celebration of their own. What would they do if you came knocking on their door? I hope you enjoy the answer.

At Dracula’s Mansion

At Dracula’s mansion, on Halloween night,
the monsters are hiding inside, out of sight.
They patiently wait till the moment is right,
the moment you ring the front bell.

They’ll throw the door open and put on a show,
some magic in front of the pumpkins’ warm glow.
And you’ll have a seat in the very front row
as they cast their magical spell.

The ghost will perform his new vanishing act.
The witch will pull black rabbits out of her hat.
Count Dracula simply turns into a bat
as you’re bravely waiting for sweets.

You might find it scary to be in this fix.
But monsters… well, that’s the way they get their kicks.
At Dracula’s mansion, they always do tricks,
before they give out any treats.

— Kenn Nesbitt