Welcome to the Young Writers’ Corner!

As an instructor at The Writer’s Center, one of Adele Steiner’s goals has been to provide the many talented young poets and writers who attend Center workshops with a showcase for their writing. This summer, Adele taught Poetry and Narrative Verse for Teens and we wanted to give Adele’s students the opportunity to be the first young poets and writers to contribute their work to this blog.

The poetry Adele submitted for this post is the result of some time travel back to the work of the “Beat” poets, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Allen Ginsberg. In the workshop, the students read some examples of “Beat” poetry and discussed one of the goals of these poets: to draw attention to social, economic, and environmental issues that were in need of remedy. As a result, the following poems express both love and concern for the environment:


The surface sinks a little
with every step you take.
Dirt hugs every toe
as you inhale a mouthful of cool air
with your eyes trapped
in the wild jungle of your hair.

The gray cape that once again covers your sky
hasn’t been pierced.

A deafening silence covers the mouths of fleeing birds
and dancing crickets. You stand still
in the middle of the thick dirt
under the spell of eternal spotless gray.

Not even the wind is here anymore
to get you down on your knees.
Only the tender breeze in your arms and chest
is scratching, biting.

-Camilla (age 15)


The tree stands tall
Its branches swaying in the wind,
Swiftly moving against a blanket of blue skies.
The tree has the power to see all, both heaven and earth.
The tree, even naked, can still make people stare in awe,
The tree whose leaves come together to form a crown of nests,
The tree whose branches are runways for baby birds taking flight,
The tree, reaching for the stars that hide between the sun’s beaming rays.
The tree, where kids take comfort, sit ,and dream,
The tree, providing us with shelter and shade.

-Karina (age 16)


I was a Mermaid

I was a mermaid
I was in love

I was sleepily drifting on the ocean floor
I was floating on my back
I was running my fingernails through the seaweed,
tugging up tufts from the sandy bottom
whenever the urge so possessed me--
I was weaving a crown.

I was at rest
I was gazing into the sun, piercing the water’s surface
with blades of light
I was spinning through time,
my hair curling about my eyes,
a silky web encompassing my face
until I could not see
I was slipping through the cave of coral

I was stroking your face—beaming into your eyes
I was kissing you

I was a mermaid
I was in love

-Molly (age 16)


Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time
The sky wasn’t tattered
There wasn’t a hole in the Ozone Layer

Once upon a time
The ocean was only littered with sparkles
And landfill meant filled with land

Once upon a time
Humans weren’t aliens
If they came to the Promised Land

Once upon a time
The sky was blue
The grass was green
And glaciers were solid

Once upon a time

-Luci (age 13)


Night Air

We look at flush drops
of fire in the sky,
their numbers matched
by our questions.
They drown the sounds
of the crackling fire,

of the hooting owl,
of the croking frogs,
of the chirping crickets---
I raise my right hand
to touch taste, taste, smell.

And I do.

Velvet sweet night air
overshelms my senses.
All goes black…
Until my drops have left…

-Christopher