Due this week

General Writing. Send in your best work – poems, short stories, essays. (Feel free to do it throughout the year, but this gives you a deadline.)
Deadline: Oct. 10.

To submit to Newspaper Series

  • Log in. (Click "Not a YWP member?" to create an account.)

  • Click "create content" and create an ENTRY
  • Fill out "title," "author name, school & grade" and "prompt" boxes.
  • Paste story into "body."
  • Click "Submit." You are done.
    NOTES: Your account email must be accurate; a "blog" entry must be resubmitted as an ENTRY to be considered.

Farming

greenlemon's picture
Submitted by greenlemon on March 23, 2008 - 17:48.

The family

They wake up as farmers
And do the morning chores
While others
Are still asleep
Then they all go off
To lead their double lives

She

Goes to school
A student
Comes home
A farmer
As she feeds the sheep

Her mother

Goes to work
A nurse
Comes home
A farmer
While she delivers a lamb

Her father

Goes to work
A teacher
Comes home
A farmer
When he milks the cows

The family

Earning enough
To get by
With their jobs
And the small profit
From the farm

But they could not make it
If not for
Their double lives

The reality
Of many small-farm owners
Today

greenlemon's picture

Any ideas?

Submitted by greenlemon on March 23, 2008 - 17:56.

I have no idea what else to do with this, but I really need to add more. A lot more. Does anyone have any ideas? I'm trying to describe how many farmers today have other jobs, with a small farm as more of a hobby.

Special's picture

i like it, simple with it's

Submitted by Special on March 23, 2008 - 18:57.

i like it, simple with it's repetition.

greenlemon's picture

Can you think of any way I

Submitted by greenlemon on March 23, 2008 - 20:12.

Can you think of any way I can improve it? I want to enter it for the farming prompt.

squeejay's picture

hmmm

Submitted by squeejay on March 24, 2008 - 07:29.

maybe using the line "the double lives they live" or stuff like "farming alone just isn't enough anymore" try to emphasize that they are forced to overwork themselves just to make a lmeager living.

if you want, you can also describe them waking up in the morning, having to do farm chores, then rushing to work again... and if you want, you can also talk about young children who stay at home, working on the farm, but who will soon have to work outside the farm world...

hope these ideas helped...
_______________________________________
A thousand tears rolling down your cheek are healed by a single tear on the shoulder of a friend.

greenlemon's picture

Thank you so much! I think

Submitted by greenlemon on March 24, 2008 - 17:56.

Thank you so much! I think the things you mentioned were exactly what it needed for me to add a little more to it...Is this what you meant?

Sponsors

    We are grateful to the Vermont Business Roundtable and its members -- business and educational leaders throughout the state -- for their generous support of this project. These leaders recognize the value of what we do and the importance of writing in life. For more, see: VERMONT BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE & members
    We also depend on the generosity of individuals. Please DONATE NOW to continue our work. We are a 501(c)3 federal charity and so all donations are tax-deductible.