Young Writers Project is a creative, online community of teen writers and visual artists that started in Burlington in 2006. Each week, VTDigger publishes the writing and art of young Vermonters who post their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for youth, ages 13-19. To find out more, please go to youngwritersproject.org or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org; (802) 324-9538.
If you work in a creative field or label yourself an artist more broadly, then you know all about writer’s block (we’re happy to lend the term to all, even if the written word isn’t your chosen form of expression). Sometimes all you can do to break through is, well, write about the obstruction itself. This week’s featured poet, Penelope Zygarowski of Burlington, conquers a recent inability to write by taking that challenge on as her subject.
Wistful words
By Penelope Zygarowski, 16, of Burlington
Poetry used to fall from my earthy lips like flowers.
My words were lightning,
my hands thunder,
my tears like glass and waterfalls
falling heavily onto each chalky page.
But now my tears are salt,
and they fall onto blank pages.
What used to be flowers falling from my lips
are now the ashes of the poems I want to write
but somehow can’t.
They are stuck in that place in my mind
I can’t yet find.
The world is full of delicious ideas,
yet they drip through my callused hands
like a liquid so pure,
I can’t seem to
hold
on to
it.
But now I’m slowly starting again,
remembering what was lost,
how it feels to write:
like dewy mornings and midnight rain.
The words are here again,
blooming on my tongue.
Finally.
