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.

The Future

Submitted by Kathleen M. Tar... on April 25, 2008 - 17:17.

The Future

By Rory Tafuto
Woodstock Union Middle School, Grade 8

What does the future hold for us?
Smog filled skies and poison cars
And broken land with useless dust
And nature’s beauty behind bars?

Can I ever show my kids
(if they ever come my way)
The beauty of a sunset
At the end of the day?

Can I walk into a forest
And surround myself with trees
Yet know that it will remain
For me to visit as I please?

I know that I can today
Do all the things I’ve said
But when today is yesterday
Will all these things be dead?

Is every little thing
We care about so much
Not worth it in the end
Since we’re making such a big fuss?

Can I walk outside my house
On any average day
And breathe in the cool, fresh air
Safe for me to stay?

Will the earth come crumbling down
Just from our own race
And all the creatures suffer
Because we didn’t solve this case?

What luxury is worth this damage
Including your own car?
When every thing suffers
And the time away is not that far?

Would your own needs
really matter to tend
when possibly the whole world
would come to an end?

Can we all just live our lives
Usual and long
And expect that nothing at all
Will go the least bit wrong?

What if all you thought
wasn’t right
And your life was destroyed
Just overnight?

This problem is enormous
As we gradually take heed,
So we must fix it quickly
Using words, thoughts
And deeds.

Rory...

Submitted by ggevalt on April 25, 2008 - 18:03.

I think you did a very good job with this piece. It has good rhythm, evocative images and some great questions. I like the progression. I like how you phrase things.

At the YWP we like to offer authors ideas on how they might improve their piece or their writing. What I often suggest young writers who write poetry is to read it aloud, and perhaps you have, to see if there are places that your tongue trips up. This is a good practice to do with any writing -- prose included. Because if your tongue trips up, most likely your readers' brains will too, so it's a good spot to revise and smooth out.

I found a couple of lines to be this way.... "Since we’re making such a big fuss?" For instance...is there one too many beats in that sentence? Would it flow better without "big"? Just a thought. Anyway, give it a try.

Also, I apologize for my generation...It seems we are placing a great burden on your shoulders, a problem so grave. Your bleakness is, of course, sad to me, the reader. Did you intend it so? Was that the tone you wanted? Or did you want to leave me more upbeat, to leave me feeling that, "Well, it's OK, she can carry it. She'll do alright."

Anyway, thanks for sharing this, or, rather, thanks for letting your mom share this with us. We look forward to having you join up and share more of your writing.

cheers
gg

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