Right Near Silly's Mile: My Hippo Has The Hiccups, And Other Poems I Totally Made Up by Kenn Nesbitt

1 Crazy Place

Instead of having streets with names
Like Broadway, Park, or Main,
We have a street called Rowboat Row,
And one called Winfirst Place.

There's Ginger Route and Tennis Court
And also Upson Downs,
It's fair to say we have
The most unusual of towns.

So come and find your Happy Place;
It's right near Silly's Mile;
We hope you like our town so much
You'll move to Stayaw Aisle.

Kenn Nesbitt, poet author of the brand-new My Hippo Has the Hiccups with CD: And Other Poems I Totally Made Up, (Jabberwocky, 2009) obviously lives just down Silly Street from Jeff Foxworthy, near Where the Sidewalk Ends, and next door to The New Kid on the Block. In that poetic precinct where Jeff and Shel and Jack are the life of the block party, here's a new poet who can rhyme and pun with those bigtime wise guys on the corner.

For a quick example, here is Nesbitt's nimble way with a pun, in his "Alphabet Break":

I'm learning my ABCs.
I'm good at D, E. F, and G.

I have memorized H and I and J,
And memorized the letter K.

I've studied L, M, N, and O,
But now I really have to go.

Before I learn one more, you see,
I really must get up to P.

With over 100 funny poems, Ethan Long's hilarious black-line drawings reminiscent of Shel Silverstein's books, and an CD read by the author, the performing top banana of the school circuit, My Hippo Has the Hiccups with CD: And Other Poems I Totally Made Up, has it all for elementary readers of rhyme.

Other comic collections of poems by Nesbitt include When The Teacher Isn't Looking: And Other Funny School Poems and Revenge of the Lunch Ladies: The Hilarious Book of School Poetry.