A poem doesn’t always have to be about something. You’re allowed to write a poem about pretty much nothing at all, just for the sake of writing it. To writers in general, and to poets in particular, the sounds of words are often just as important as the meanings of words. The fun and challenge are to string these words together in your own unique way.
One way of doing this is to start with a word, like weasel, cow, or stew, and then list lots of rhyming words that you think might go along with that word. Shuffle them up, try them in different combinations, and see what happens. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
In the case of the weasel poem, at first I thought I would use mostly words that rhymed with weasel, but that didn’t work out, so I decided to use those eez words that rhymed with the first half of weasel, and it worked. At least I think it did. Even if it hadn’t worked, I still would have had a great time trying, and so can you.
rhyme: words or the endings of words that sound alike. Look and took rhyme, mother and brother rhyme, and llamas and pajamas also rhyme. Just because two words look as if they rhyme doesn’t mean that they do. For example, moth does not rhyme with both.
You’ve been using rhymes all your life. Remember the nursery rhymes you used to repeat? Or how about the jump-rope rhymes and games you shouted on the playground? Rhyming gives a poem grace and charm and is an ideal way to make puns, but it’s not easy to do. I always recommend that young poets shouldn’t tackle rhyming until they understand other basic aspects of a poem, such as rhythm and meter and using ideas creatively and succinctly.