Young Writers Project

Each week, Young Writers Project receives several hundred submissions from students in Vermont and New Hampshire in response to writing prompts, and the best are selected for publication here and in 21 other newspapers and on vpr.net.

This week’s prompt was “Inspiration: Describe your muse” and photo prompt, “Photo 3: Collage.”

Italian Dream

By Luna Isham

Grade 10, Harwood Union High School

My Muse,

what a finicky thing she is!

Sometimes wearing the garb of sorrow and death,

the next moment

she’s an angel of hope and love!

She playfully teases me with half-formed thoughts

that rattle in my brain so much as to cause a great distraction!

This noise cannot cease lest I work and mold the unhewn block

that my fae-like muse has given me

till it is shaped into its final form,

some more beautiful than others

when that is done.

Then my brain can rest for awhile

and have relief from the work of molding my tumbling thoughts

till she throws a bustle of words to me again!

Fighting with Flowers

By Lydia Raymond

Grade 8, Crossett Brook Middle School

In a world with black and white

where there are no beams of light,

I am here with my trigger made of stem

with bright red petals that others condemn;

soldiers killing for respect from others,

but in my own perspective,

it’s us killing our brothers.

The wives at home, mending their children’s clothes,

sit at a table with one empty chair.

To the parents with soldiers on their doors,

giving them news they have never regretted more,

instead of shooting with guns,

we can shoot with bullets of probity

at our hearts where it hurts most to realize where the love went;

in a world where we end this fight,

when we can find peace in our pistols,

and we set them down and go home tonight.