YWP: 'Here, Fix This'

[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.

Photo by Lauren McCabe of South Burlington/YWP Media Library

This week, we present the second-place winner of YWP’s spring writing contest celebrating Vermont Writes Day through our Community Journalism Project initiative.

The Community Journalism Project (CJP) is a new initiative established by Young Writers Project to help share the voices of young Vermonters on issues shaping their lives and their future, through writing and photo challenges, journalism skill-building, workshops, and newspaper publication.

Contest challenge: ISSUE

ISSUE. What is one issue that really matters to you, globally, nationally or locally? What keeps you up at night? How does this issue affect your vision of the future?

“I write because these days it seems that it is the only way to stay afloat amid the screaming world. There are so many problems our earth and fellow humans are facing, and writing can be the perfect antidote to hate. But I also write because honestly, I don’t know who I am without being surrounded with words and lyrics. Poetry has become such a big part of my heart and soul that I cannot imagine my life unspoiled by language, and oh, how spoiled I am!” – Emma Paris

Here, Fix This

Emma Paris, 13, Putney

Second place

“Here, fix this,”
they say, handing out the homework.
I stare at the world – er, worksheet.
This is a problem I can’t solve alone.
The world is heating.
What am I supposed to do?
The oceans are rising.
What am I supposed to do?
Species are dying.
What am I supposed to do?
We are dying …
What am I supposed to do?
I raise my hand,
“What are we supposed to do?”
The billionaire – er, teacher looks up.
“Fix it.”
Nobody is working.
We are all solemnly staring at
our world – er, worksheet.
It’s quiet.
I can hear the clock ticking away
the seconds we have left.
The CEOs – er, teacher tells us to hand them in.
I am the last to hand mine in.
I notice no one wrote anything on theirs.
We sit down.
I raise my hand again.
“What was the answer?”
The president – er, teacher looks startled.
He doesn’t say anything.
“Never mind,”
I say, walking out of the classroom.
“We already know.”
I walked out that day …
and I wasn’t the only one.

YWP: ‘Here, Fix This’

Here, Fix This

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