Young 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.
It’s finally time to pack that last wool sweater away in the back of the closet with a couple fresh mothballs — spring has sprung! This week’s featured poet, Penny Webster of Richmond, captures the tranquility of a seasonal shower breathing new life into the winter-weary landscape once more.
A rainy day
By Penny Webster, 13, of Richmond
Soft shadows reflect on the shady ground.
Mud sloshes toward the swimming pool of puddles.
The inky soup stirs in the wind.
But still, the rain continues.
Thick water droplets hit the roof loudly
as a cloud of gray towers over.
Leafy green trees sag with stress.
Flowers fall to the ground,
unable to hold themselves up.
But still, the rain continues.
The howling wind blows around,
making a tornado of leaves.
Small birds dodge past the incoming water,
hiding in the small crevice in the dying willow tree.
But still, the rain continues.
The mother bird hugs her young.
Holding them like a nail.
Binding
them
together.
But then, the rain stops.
The bees, butterflies, and birds
come out into the moist air.
Plants slurp up the water
that was left sitting on the shivering ground.
The trees come out of their leaves.
Out of their hiding.
Little buds pop out of the ground.
Itty-bitty rays of sun peek out.
Green grass shimmers in the peeking glow.
Hesitate for a moment
to see the beauty of it all.