🐘 Behind the Stanza: Creating “The Elephant” in Poems for Breakfast

Sparks, sketches, and surprises that shaped the Poems for Breakfast series (+ writing tip).

Ever sat around a light brown laminate conference table, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, a half-full cup of lukewarm coffee in front of you—listening, nodding, maybe even contributing—but deep down, you know you’ve been in this exact meeting before? Same conversation, slightly reworded. Same slide deck, just with yesterday’s date swapped out.

This, my friends, is a corporate meeting.

A meeting like this is where The Elephant was born.

THE ELEPHANT

What do you do
When you can’t squeeze past
The elephant in the room?

You try to be nice
And talk real concise,
With an elephant in the room.

He sits and he stares,
And he plays with your hair.
He’s the elephant in the room.

But we all play along
And sing the same song:
(sing this part) “There’s no elephant in the room.”

An Ode to Every Meeting That Could Have Been an Email

Three months into a six-month campaign as a creative director for a global technology company, our team met in the same conference room. Every day, we sipped coffee, discussed the project, and tiptoed around the thing we all sensed but never quite said out loud.

If you’ve been in these meetings, you know the cast of characters. Someone typing furiously, eyes slightly wild (not the notetaker, just fighting a never-ending inbox). Someone quiet but strategic, looking up just enough to contribute at the right moment. The unspoken seating chart—sit in the same chair three days in a row, and that spot belongs to you. Change seats, and some will respond as if you took their parking space.

The whole thing had a predictable rhythm. It could be funny, even absurd, if we let it be. But speak of the elephant in the conference room, and you’d likely get awkward eye daggers.

What Kids Know That We Forget

Of course, great ideas do happen in meetings. And sometimes, they’re just a shared moment of collective head-nodding.

But kids? Kids don’t nod along. They ask. They point straight at the elephant in the room and say, Why is that here? No hesitation. No pretending.

That’s why The Elephant made the final cut for Poems for Breakfast. As a children’s book for families to enjoy together, it explores joy and wonder, but also truth—the kind we’re born knowing before we learn to step around the obvious.

Oh, that project we were sprinting to launch? Another team in another city working for the same company was launching the same thing at the same time. After an embarrassing pivot to something else, no one talked much about that, either.

The Elephant?

Yeah, it’s real. And it’s standing right there, tipping the table and messing with our hair.

📝 Writing Tip: Use What You’ve Got

It’s easy to think we need some epic, Insta-worthy adventure to spark great writing. Honestly, the best material is usually hiding in plain sight.

Waiting in line at the DMV. Debating which cheese sample to grab at the grocery store. Sitting through yet another corporate meeting where an elephant is clearly present but tragically unacknowledged.

Don’t get me wrong—hiking the mountains of Tibet or free diving in the Caymans? Amazing.

The ordinary stuff? There is gold there too.

Consider that the idea is not so ordinary anymore because it’s filtered through your unique lens.

So use what you’ve got.

The Poems for Breakfast series is an illustrated collection of whimsical children’s poem books that make mealtime an adventure.

Available on Amazon in hardcover and paperback. Join the adventure at poemsforbreakfast.com.