Poets and Education

April 15, 2014 — history, nursery rhymes, poems, politics

From the time we learned our first Dr Seuss rhyme we were being educated by poets.  Nursery rhymes and fairy tales are used to teach morals and ethics to children.  There is value in the use of language to enchant and stick in the memory.  Poets are feeding the artistic as well as the language skills of readers.  Our own stories can only be told by our own voice.  To develop a voice as a writer or a poet one simply needs to start. Children are ready to rhyme and laugh at almost any word.  Adults often loose enthusiasm for word play as they grow older.  Since poetry stimulates creativity, and is a tool to jog the memory it makes sense to read and write poems.  Often hidden meaning can be found in song and story, as it is in Calypso.  Political protest can be carried out in a rhyme using allegory to mask the obvious.  Some of our nursery rhymes today were once hot treason against authorities.  What kind of symbolic words would you use to write a poetic protest today?