Young 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 boredom is the root of all evil, it’s also the mother of invention – in this case, the creative impetus behind this week’s featured poem. Writing with an air of light and levity, Thetford poet Cecilia Luce offers us her own recipe for curing monotonous afternoons.
The cure for boredom
Cecilia Luce, 15, Thetford
First, add a teaspoon of sugar.
(Because the opposite of boredom is fun, and what is fun if not sweet?)
Sprinkle it into a cauldron of sparkling water.
Let it simmer – use your patience! – and once it starts to bubble,
add 14 drops of bottled sunshine.
(It works best if it has been collected in May.)
The mixture should turn lime green.
Wait three minutes,
and then pour in:
• hysterical laughter (as much of it as you have!),
• frost that’s been collected on a December morning,
• and a bit of luck for good measure.
At this point, it will either be neon orange,
navy blue,
or lilac.
Stir it four times counterclockwise,
then eight times clockwise.
Add the taste of dark chocolate,
the smell of old books,
and a fiery red maple leaf.
Boil it until it’s an iridescent silver,
and then chill it before serving.
Drink it whenever you feel the twinge of monotony –
this potion doesn’t expire!
It will quench your boredom,
but also your thirst,
because it tastes like raspberry lemonade.
