[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.
If the tradition of the New Year’s resolution tells us anything about ourselves, humans are constantly seeking fresh starts. Sometimes, though, the best first step in a new journey is to slow down and breathe. Weybridge writer Maisie Newbury offers a poem this week in the form of a midnight toast from one partner to another, reminding them to still smile and savor every passing moment.
Slow Dance
By Maisie Newbury, 17
[Y]ou watch your life fly by through a window.
I stare at it emptily through a screen,
preferring to watch rather than participate
in a life I have never felt, only seen.
Years pass and we grow up.
Things change, friends leave.
We say goodbye and then hello.
One thousand, two thousand nineteen.
You better slow down,
dance steady for a while,
because life is too short
and to fight time is futile.
Waltzes last longer
when held close with a smile,
so dance like a lover
rather than a child.
Take a breath, you’re doing fine.
Place your hands on my waist
and I will keep time.
You’ll get better with age
like a fine red wine.
Just let the music swell
and know you are alive.
One more step toward me
and we’ll be right in line.
So come a little closer,
put your lips on mine.
Nothing feels so perfect,
right here, at midnight,
and it’s so romantic –
a new first kiss tonight.
Some might call this juvenile
(and one day, you know, we will too).
But let’s disappear in the meanwhile,
turn off our phones,
and drive for a day or two.
It’s been a long time coming
and our song is not even halfway through.
We’ve got a brand new start…
happy New Year to you.
