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.
“Rain, rain, go away…” Or if you’re here to stay another day, show me the way to let go; go along with the flow. This week’s featured poet, Maelyn Slavik of Burlington, listens to the hum of water impacting her roof and winding its way down the gutters, and wishes that she too could feel both as buoyant as the bouncing drops yet as sure of a future destination when she touches her feet to the ground.
Carefree drops
By Maelyn Slavik, 12, Burlington
The rain pitter-patters against the roof,
dripping down the sides.
The pipes treat the steady streams
like a waterslide,
twisting and turning their way down.
The constant drops thrum in my ears,
echoing like a shout in a cave.
My mind tries to find a pattern in the beat,
but it comes too quickly, impossible to discover.
It hits the water, creating ripples and splashes
that form intricate sculptures midair
before falling back down into the cool water.
The rain has a destination, but not a unique one.
Its goal is just to make it to the ground.
I wish I could be that carefree:
to not truly care where I am going,
and to be happy wherever I land.