Young Writers Project is an independent nonprofit that engages Vermont and New Hampshire students to write, helps them improve and connects them with authentic audiences in newspapers, before live audiences and on websites, including youngwritersproject.org, vtdigger.org, vpr.net, medium.com and cowbird.com. Young Writers Project also publishes a digital magazine, The Voice. YWP is supported by this newspaper and foundations, businesses and individuals who recognize the power and value of writing.
This week: “The fierce urgency of now.” The writers responded to a challenge created by Dartmouth College to write about what needs action now, based on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to action in 1967 when he denounced the Vietnam War: “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
Dartmouth and the Young Writers Project will present a writing workshop on “the fierce urgency of now” with Vermont author Jo Knowles in Hanover on Feb. 3. Selected writers will read their work later that evening at Dartmouth College. For more information: youngwritersproject.org/mlk2017
Why Are We Waiting?
In the history of the world, there is such a thing as being too late. We have said that we will do this tomorrow, but now that tomorrow is knocking on our front door telling us, Hello, I am here and the time is now. We simply can no longer throw our heads under our pillows and ask it to come back. No, tomorrow will not come knocking on our door forever, so we cannot be late.
In our country, there are several issues that are knocking, pounding on our door, begging us to give them aid, yet we turn our heads and look in the other direction. The issue of inequality depending on who you are has been fighting for its moment under our gaze for many years now. It has been begging for us to open our door and take it in. People should not be ridiculed for their gender, the color of their skin, their religion, or their sexuality. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for African Americans to have the same rights as everyone else. Why, in this day and age, are we still hearing this inequality pummel our door, trying to invade our nation? Why are we not trying harder to push it out so we can all live and enjoy “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?” Why, have we been telling tomorrow to come back again and again. Why?
Also, we have heard the knocking of climate change. We have seen the ice caps melting. We have seen California’s drought. We have seen water levels continue to rise. We have seen each summer set record temperatures. If the rule is, “Seeing is believing”, then why have we seen climate change and still do not believe it? The human race may be strong, but mother earth can wipe us out in the blink of an eye. If our entire future as humans depends on the earth, why do we let climate change continually knock on our door? Why do we keep telling climate change, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow? Why? Dr. King said, “an individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” We need to see beyond our personal needs. In the divided nation of today, we need to accept the problems knocking at our door and do something about them. Why have we waited so long staring at these problems and letting them slowly gain fuel? Why, why? Now is the time to act. There is such a thing as being too late, but it is preventable. Many of the issues knocking at our door do require immediate action. If we stand together in this moment, we will not be too late. If we utilize the time of now, together, we can take the necessary action of now.
Read the complete story here: youngwritersproject.org/node/13052
Tomorrow Is Today
The world has never been perfect.
Most likely it will never be perfect.
But we must strive to reach the light;
instead of saying that “the world needs improvement,”
we should think from a different angle
— the world can be even better than it is now.
The longer we tarry, the worse the situation becomes.
The longer we tarry, the more lives are lost.
The longer we wait to take action about black shootings, the more African American lives are at risk.
Taking action today, instead of tomorrow, could save a life.
It will soon be too late.
There is urgency to act, no time to spare
— that’s the reality.
The “tomorrow” where Donald Trump is president has come.
We must act — we must protect ourselves,
not too close to become twisted in his web,
not too far to lose awareness of what he is doing.
In tomorrow’s tomorrow, we hope to be close to peace
— never forget what happened in the yesterday. The suffering.
Remember.
We must also remember
— Martin Luther King Jr.’s deep understanding of others
and his wise words …
(Complete poem: youngwritersproject.org/node/12493)
My Big, Beautiful Bubble
I live in a bubble
called Hanover—
where the population is mostly white,
where a lot of people are well off,
where there is little suffering to be seen.
I float above the world
in my bubble reality
translucent | walls |
filter out
shi me eld
from the world’s problems
I’m
oblivious
ignorant. ….
(Read the complete poem here: http://youngwritersproject.org/node/13062)
Peace in America
Fifty-four years ago, a great American man spoke out against white supremacy during the March on Washington.
This man honored peace, peacefully protesting unfair treatment, discrimination, and segregation against the black people of the United States.
Peace, such a small word, but with so much POWER. The power to stop a war, the power to stop bloodshed, the power to transform people…
Our nation was faced with the discrimination and segregation of black people about half a century ago. There is still a Ku Klux Klan, who terrorize and kill the innocent people of African American heritage in our community. There are still white supremacists, who represent a growing percentage of the population in the U.S. Our nation is now faced with many more problems and there are many more yet to come.
Many people know that Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, entered the Emanuel African Methodist Church in South Carolina and shot and killed nine people during a prayer service two years ago. Most people know about the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando or the bombing at the Boston Marathon. The “land of the free” that allows all people to live their lives in peace.
Where is this “land of the free?” The land of the free has been plagued by disease, a disease that has already spread across the nation. The disease makes headlines when our children see people using racist slurs, when they see the videos of shootings that occur nearly every week on social media and news, and when they turn on the TV to innocently watch their favorite show, but are greeted by the war footage in Syria. ….
(Read the complete story here youngwritersproject.org/node/13050)