week4.08

The Young Writers Project is looking for great student art to publish each week! These two pictures were taken by Alma Hartman of Essex High School. Click on the photos for more. If you want to submit your photos for potential outside publication, click here for more info. Click here to see the image galleries for the last two years.

We are also looking for you writers to comment on your fellow artists' photos or art work. If you feel like writing something -- a story or a poem or whatever -- based on either of these photos, click on either of the photos and leave a comment -- a poem or a story -- below the picture!

The deadline for pieces related to the YWP's third prompt -- POINT OF VIEW or SUPER POWERS -- are due Wed. Oct. 3. Don't forget you need to be registered and activated on this site to submit. Don't wait for the last minute! Click here for info on submitting.

The fourth week of the 2007/08 YWP Newspaper Series features general writing from students throughout Vermont and New Hampshire and updated information on YWP's Special Projects for the year. Click the image to the left to see or download one of the full-sized pages as a pdf. Click the links below for more.

Click here for student writing.

Click here for more info on Special Projects.

Hey,
what's up, Sweet Thing?
You look stunning:
hair grown long
and died
platinum blond,
tight clothes gripping your cold
fair skin,
nails nicely manicured,
face made up so that
I can barely recognize you.
You've grown so much.

By Rachael D. Sanguinetti
U-32 High School, Grade 10

The music that comes out when I open my mouth
and let the air rush out,
It is beautiful, everyone says
“What a great voice,” they say
“Thank You,” I reply with a shy smile
I am not usually shy
but when it comes to my voice
I crumble at the slightest compliment
Sometimes
some days
my voice is bigger than me
it fills the room
and is pretty,
people love it
and appreciate the music i can make
Some days,
as weird as it sounds,
I wish I could be as big as my voice makes me look,
I wish I could be as big as my voice makes me feel inside.

By Chris Adams
Lake Region Union High School, Grade 12

People just pass you by on the street, and you never stop to think of what could happen. What if you looked up at the same moment or if you all reached for the same lucky penny on the ground? Could that sketchy man you just passed become infatuated with you and stalk you for life? Scary, but not boring. Could that little old lady ask you to help her with her groceries and then turn out to be a millionaire and leave you her entire fortune as thanks for your one kind deed?
It’s strange to think that people want to remain isolated, heads to the ground looking for stray coins when the real treasures are behind the faces above.
I spent this morning on North Beach in Burlington. It’s kind of a smelly place, with the occasional hobo camping out, no romantic landscape to be sure, but if you keep your eyes out on the water and concentrate on the wind, you can pretend well enough. There were only a few others there since it was so early and too cool to swim.

I made sure to wear my red flowy skirt so it would fly in the wind as I waded half up to my knees in the water, and I could pretend I was from a Victorian novel. Later I would lean against one of those beautiful knotted trees and look pensive and turmoiled.

Before I get to the tree part, though, I’ll tell you about the rather magnificent boy there. He himself was leaning on a tree, looking out over the water. I don’t want to guck him up and say he was looking out determinedly, or desperately, or hopefully, because I really couldn’t tell from my distance. All I knew was that he was tall, and much too skinny (almost goofy); his hair was straw colored, and had gone a little wild. He was too freckled to be devastatingly handsome, but “dashing” might do it.

If I had known
Last night's sunset
Was your last
I would have been
Different
I would have
Said goodbye

I had no way of knowing
My intuition didn’t run
That deep
I wish on all the shooting stars
four leaf clovers
heads up pennies
that was different

Nothing
Could make me
Ready
Saying goodbye
Could have made
It easier.

My eternity now
Lies in the hands
Of absence.