Poems from Young Writers

In response to our request for poetry and prose from young writers, we received these two poems … one from a high school student in Edgemont and another from an eighth grader at Scarsdale Middle School. If you have work you would like to share on the site, please email it to [email protected] , and we will publish what space allows.

America’s Depression by Lauren Stuzin, Junior at Edgemont High School

He puts his suit on
Drives to work in reverse
Why does everything seem wrong?
Has our luck dispersed?

It’s as if we’ve been functioning backwards
He leaves today with a box in his hands
Sit back and watch as the workers fly away like birds
The color leaks from society all over the lands

We stand together on the ledge of that large aperture
Others wave us in
But step in? We’re unsure
Will this decline engulf us and win?

It’s become more of a waiting
Than guessing game
Our superiority is surely fading
It seems there’s nothing we can do, for this downswing won’t tame

-2008

Gym Clothes by Henry Korzec, eighth grade, Scarsdale Middle School

my locker is like a gym
smelly
putrid
sweaty
but most of all dark
every other day
I begin my journey to the gym
I play basketball
and talk to my friends
but after that I am thrown
or kicked
or tossed into
A
very
dark
concealed
quiet
heinous
place
just to be worn again