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.
Sometimes nothing beats kicking back on a park bench or café stool for a little people-watching. (We all do it!) This week’s featured poet, Noell Koslowsky of Wells River, shares not a hilarious or punchy observation, but arguably one better: genuine love, seen from afar.
Strangers’ love
By Noell Koslowsky, 17, of Wells River
I set my mug down on the table.
Clink.
I couldn’t manage to figure out the word across.
With frustration I dragged my hand across my face
and decided to take a break.
I looked up at the crowd, and my eyes immediately found them.
In all my people-watching, I had never seen people like them.
Their eyes were so full of affection,
and joy radiated off of them like a golden cloud.
All of this love felt so warm, even from over here.
I watched their smiles grow,
and their conversation flow,
but only for each other.
They never seemed to notice anyone else,
their attention never strayed elsewhere.
I had never seen a bond such as theirs,
so beautiful and raw,
just pure everlasting love.
There they sat, in all their glittering glory, far across the room from me.
And all I could do
was yearn for a love like theirs.
