[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.
It’s easy to think of the life cycle in negative terms sometimes (at least, when the winter months hit here in Vermont). All the same, this week’s Charlotte-based poet, Kate Silverman, cannot help but put a smile on her readers’ faces as she paints the fragrant picture of a flower’s growth, death, and future renewal.
The Way the Flowers Grow
By Kate Silverman, 12
[A] single seed dropped to the ground,
roots pushing into the deep, dark earth.
A brave little stem poking through the surface,
up, up, up,
reaching toward the sky.
Branches opening their arms to the sun,
little leaves unfurling.
The blossoms smelling sweet,
the petals colored bright.
But when the sun stops shining
or the rain stops falling,
the cernuous flower will fall back down,
a million seeds dropped to the ground
and back to the earth that started it all.
