Emotion carries weight much like a tackle box but unlike a tackle box, it should not be reserved solely for the good times. There are so many events that happen in people’s lives to write poetry about that it would be folly to save one’s talents only to make people feel nostalgic.

To some, it may seem like writing poetry has created a significant schism in recent years, with some even saying that rhyming should only be used in children’s poetry or nursery rhymes. Some may in fact believe that rhyming or rhythm is below their current worth as a writer and some may simply excel at writing prose so poetic that it jumps from the tallest page into the reader’s mind.

Whichever the distinction, two things do remain; poetry is constantly evolving and changing to adapt to the modern mind and rhyme can be used successfully to evoke any emotion the writer wishes to, just look at the creators of certain advertisements on television.

Take younger readers for example; most would rather spend time looking at electronics and social media to soothe the savage beast. However, a growing number can’t even name a poet or two they’ve learned about in school (at least here in America) outside of maybe Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, or even Shakespeare. It seems as if creative language and the tools to succeed in using it have fallen on the back burner to more mindless trends in today’s world.

However, all is not lost when younger people find the emotions they do not have the words to explain all within the confines of a well-crafted, jaunty poem. Reading rhyming poetry with a balanced rhythm is one of the best ways of learning mnemonics, and it is also one of the greatest tools for delivering ideas to young minds as well as stubborn older ones.

Younger minds are more malleable and more willing to listen to what us as poets have to say and to say that rhyme is below us and should be given to kids because we’re too good for it, that’s like donating a chocolate bar -as an adult- to end world hunger when we all know where the money goes. If adult writers are too stubborn to relinquish a little bit of creativity into the younger hemisphere for the betterment of readers everywhere, then maybe those same adults should not get so upset when talentless celebrity icons fill the youth’s heads with dreck on what talent really is. Writing rhymes is easy, it’s making them make sense that is the hard part. Either way, there’s always time for some Ogden Nash.

PICTURE: HUBPAGES.COM