Poetry Friday: a poem you’ll never read in “One Minute Till Bedtime”

Kenn Nesbitt’s new children’s poetry anthology, One Minute Till Bedtime (Little, Brown for Young Readers), is officially out, and I am so excited to be part of such a beautiful, well-received book! (I’ll be signing copies at Books-A-Million in Concord, New Hampshire, tomorrow from 1-3pm, so please stop by if you’re in the area!)

Now, I’ve already told you about the book in previous posts, but today I wanted to share a poem that’s NOT in the book…huh??

You see, when Kenn asked me to contribute a 60-second(ish)-long poem for the book, I had a couple of options: I could write a brand-new poem or two – or send in a couple of poems I had already written but never published. So I did both!

The poem that was selected for inclusion, “A Visit to the Forest,” I had written a few years ago, but never knew what to do with…so I was very happy to learn it was going to find a home within the pages of One Minute Till Bedtime.

However, I also wrote a poem about books and bedtime specifically for the book – which was not selected. So…what to do? I figured I’d share it here, so that you can at least read it while we’re all celebrating the release of the book that it never made it into! Hope you like it…

One More Book

One more book
……….is all I want.
Can you read me one more book?

It won’t take long,
……….I promise.
Please?
I’ll find a short one…
……….let me look!

I don’t want
……….a glass of water.
I don’t need
……….to try to pee.

I won’t be loud
……….or clown around
if you’ll read one more book to me.

I know I need to go to sleep.
I know you’re tired.

……….I am, too.

But one more book is all I’m asking.
Is that something we can do?

You’ve only read
……….nine books so far
and see how little time it took?

So can you read –
please, oh please –

can you read me

……….one
………………..more
…………………………book?
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© 2016, Matt F. Esenwine, all rights reserved

For more poetry, please head on over to Laura Purdie Salas’ blog, Writing the World for Kids, where she is hosting today’s complete Poetry Friday roundup!

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