Young Writers Project is an independent nonprofit that engages students to write, helps them improve and connects them with authentic audiences in newspapers, before live audiences and online. YWP also publishes an annual anthology and The Voice, a digital magazine featuring YWP’s best writing and images. More info: youngwritersproject.org, or contact YWP at sreid@youngwritersproject.org or 802-324-9538.
The Community Journalism Project is a year-long special project focusing on news, commentary and photojournalism, by sharing the voices of young Vermonters on issues that are shaping their lives and their future.
This week, we offer responses to the following challenges: Perfect. Everybody has their idea of a perfect day, when everything falls into place just right. Write about “my kind of day,” starting when you wake up, moving through the day, and ending in the evening. Make your day come alive for the reader so they can share your experience. And general writing.
Prompt: CJP response
By Eloise Silver Van Meter
Age 17, Fairlee
How is it that we’ve achieved consciousness
in so few realms?
We fail to welcome Mother Nature’s intentions.
I dream of a world in which all coexist:
creature with creature,
plant with plant,
corporation with corporation,
corporation with land and creature,
and all possible combinations of the above listed.
We’ve stolen land and dignity from indigenous peoples —
wise teachers, who know it is important to love —
and we are facing our karma.
How is it that we have become so ignorant
and self-absorbed that Mother’s role is
no longer applicable in our plastic-toy world?
Her walls keep giving,
even with nothing in return.
They protect us, nurture us,
take care of us when our bodies need healing,
and provide us with the sweetest solitude.
And yet, we push her away.
We regurgitate her fruits,
if not waste them completely.
We squirm in disgust
when her forests grow.
We are not compassionate
when she cries.
But she keeps on giving,
and will continue to keep giving,
until she can’t any longer.
Prompt: Perfect
By Abby Egner
Age 15, Thetford Center
A perfect day for some
would be spent with one they love —
but for me,
a perfect day is all in the sky.
The sun would rise,
creating a canvas of pastel pinks and purples,
and as the day went on,
it would turn a Carolina blue.
The gentle pitter-patter of the rain
on a warm summer day,
as it fell all around me,
would almost complete my idea of the perfect day.
To finish it off,
the sky would turn an almost-black,
stars twinkling as they began to appear.
I can’t help but wish for another day like this.
Prompt: General
By Marina Sprague
Age 17, Chelsea
There is a certain feeling
that accompanies long night drives,
a feeling I can’t quite describe.
Everything seems less real,
like I’m a million miles away.
All the lights seem distant,
as if darkness itself
has changed our very existence.
There’s a feeling of tranquility,
calmness in a way
that feels primal,
like this is how life should be —
a feeling of wandering endlessly
in search of nothing,
mentally on a different plane,
just staring into the night.