[Y]oung Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.
Check out the most recent issue of The Voice, Young Writers Project’s monthly digital magazine. Click here.
Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project.
YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.
Although February 14, 2019, marked one year since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the memory of that day still lingers in the minds of students, parents, and teachers across the country. This week, South Burlington poet Holly Margulius puts her foot down and demands that we do not soon forget it, either. With courage and determination, her words inspire citizens of all ages to push onward in their fight to ensure safety within American schools.
On the Anniversary of Parkland
By Holly Margulius, 16
[O]n the first anniversary
of the shooting at Parkland High,
I think about big things:
love and trust, peace and courage –
and fear, violence, and hatred.
I think of problems, solutions, institutions.
I think about humans:
our motivations, our wants, our needs –
our weaknesses, our challenges, our strengths.
And I think about lives bled out by bullet wounds
administered by weapons of mass destruction.
We have all heard of numerous tragedies
that continue to be repeated.
We all have some sort of tally in our minds.
And despite a lot of people’s stances on gun control,
I don’t think many people exist
who are not hurt themselves
when these homicides are committed.
Yet overwhelmingly,
some semblance of a solution has not been secured –
and that’s largely, I think,
because of a lack of trust in our government.
A gun is an instrument of power;
so, too, is our government,
but it can also be one of peace rather than destruction.
People throughout history have proven to us
that instruments of peace can solve problems,
if enough people believe in them.
Our government derives its power
from the people and for the people.
It is, as Benjamin Franklin said, ours –
if we can keep it.
This calls upon some of humanity’s best qualities:
empathy for others,
willingness to believe,
grit to put in the work,
and courage.
With these things, the power is ours for the wielding.
And so if you find yourself reaching for the handle of a gun
to solve your problems,
or if you find yourself sitting by as others do,
I urge you to use our government
as an instrument of peace first.
It can be very simple. It looks like…
speaking, showing up, taking a stand,
campaigning, running, writing,
signing, serving, organizing… voting.
It’s as simple as believing in your power as an individual,
whether you are following the paths others have taken
to bring the change that you want,
or making new paths yourself.
Persevere, and don’t give up.
Every person has the power within themselves
to make a big difference.
Let Parkland remind us all
of the potential we have as human beings –
and use that potential to create, not destroy.
Let it remind us all
of the importance in rallying a little courage
and using our instruments of peace.