Category: Podcast

Celebrate the upcoming release of The Greatest Book of Poetry Ever Written by Kenn Nesbitt! In this special episode, Kenn shares the story behind his biggest poetry collection yet… a “greatest hits” volume featuring 120 of his favorite poems from across his career, including 18 poems appearing in print for the very first time.

Learn why this book is especially meaningful to Kenn, hear about the wonderful illustrations by Rafael Domingos, and discover why a heartfelt endorsement from Jack Prelutsky makes this release one he’ll always treasure.

Plus, enjoy an exclusive reading of a brand-new poem from the collection, “The Pirate of Pickletown.”

Pre-order the Kindle edition here: https://kennn.com/greatestebook

The paperback and hardcover editions will be released on October 13, 2026.

When I’m writing a poem, I often know how it’s going to end long before I know how it’s will begin. It’s a little like taking a road trip. You don’t usually hop in the car and start driving without a destination in mind. First, you decide where you want to go. Then you figure out how to get there. You might take a wrong turn or two along the way, but if you keep your destination in sight, you’ll eventually arrive.

This poem came together much the same way. The ending popped into my head first, and I knew I wanted to build a poem that would lead naturally to it. The challenge was finding just the right beginning and then connecting all the dots in between. Fortunately, I had two very cooperative octopuses to help me get there. I hope you enjoy it. This is…

Octo-Pair

An octopus walking along the sea floor
was startled to look up and see,
an octopus she’d not encountered before
and cried, “Why, you look just like me!”

He also exclaimed, with a look of surprise,
“Your face looks like mine in the mirror.
We have the same siphons and suckers and eyes.
We’re siblings! That couldn’t be clearer.

“Our tentacles also are all the same size,
with all the same spots on the skin.
It’s plain as can be from the arms and the eyes
that you’re my eye-tentacle twin.”

— Kenn Nesbitt

When I was a kid, it seems like I was always getting in trouble with my parents for misbehaving. The funny thing is, I usually didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. I was just having fun. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to kick the newly planted flowers in the garden or chew on the edge of the dining room table. Somehow, though, my parents always disagreed. Those childhood memories were the inspiration for this poem, although once I started writing, the idea quickly took on a life of its own. I hope you enjoy it, and if you’ve ever gotten into trouble without quite understanding why, you might just recognize a little of yourself in this one.

I Might Have Misbehaved Today

Mom asked me when I misbehaved.
I said, “I’m not quite certain.
It may have been this morning when
I tried to climb the curtain.

“It might have been at lunch
while throwing pudding at the wall.
Or maybe when I shattered
several windows with my ball.

“Or maybe when my undies clogged
the toilet once again.
I might have misbehaved today.
I’m just not certain when.”

My mother wasn’t happy with
that answer that I gave.
From now on I’ll keep better track
of when I misbehave.

— Kenn Nesbitt

For this poem, I decided to revisit an idea I’d played with years ago in a Christmas poem that I co-wrote with my friend Linda Knaus. In that poem, “Christmas Has Its Ups and Downs,” we had fun using lots of words containing “up” and “down” to tell the story. I thought it would be amusing to create a summertime counterpart using “in” and “out” instead.

My family recently went to a couple of baseball games, and it struck me that baseball is full of “in” and “out” words: innings, infield, outfield, strikeout, and many more. It seemed like the perfect sport for this kind of wordplay.

I challenged myself to squeeze as many “in” and “out” words and phrases into the poem as possible while still telling a simple story about a family enjoying a day at the ballpark. In the end, it all builds to a rather silly phrase that makes me smile every time I say it.

See if you can spot all the different “in” and “out” words hidden throughout the poem. You might even discover a few more than I intended!

Out to the Ball Game

We drove out to the baseball game
to have a weekend outing.
If we’d stayed in instead of going out,
we’d all be pouting.

The game sold out but we got in.
We took in every inning.
We cheered and shouted in the stands.
Our team was out there winning!

They got in one last strikeout
and we cheered them as they won.
The game let out and we drove in.
That outing sure was fun!

And what we figured out,
in all the cheering and the shouting,
is that there’s nothing better
than a weekend inning outing.

— Kenn Nesbitt

I wrote this poem because I’m due for a haircut next week, and I have reached that awkward stage where my hair feels just a little too long. It’s not quite wild enough to be a problem, but it’s long enough that I find myself looking forward to my appointment and wishing it would get here sooner.

At the same time, summer has finally arrived. After months of cool, rainy weather, the idea of spending time outdoors on a warm, sunny day sounded especially appealing. That got me wondering: what if there were a barber who worked outside instead of inside a shop? Before long, I had imagined Benny Buzzcut, a barber who gives haircuts in his back yard and has become so popular that people come from all over to visit him.

As often happens with my poems, I started with a silly idea and then followed it wherever it wanted to go. Along the way, Benny’s little back yard business grew bigger and busier, and the poem eventually found its own amusing ending. I hope you enjoy meeting Benny Buzzcut as much as I enjoyed writing about him.

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