SWARM Volume One

By The Telling Room

SWARM! (Student Writers A Readers Meet!) is the Telling Room's network of Youth writing and publishing groups from across the state of Maine. Students meet, write, share, and publish their stories in a connected set of writing groups (their Hives), and collectively here, as SWARM!

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Telling Room
• Release date: Jan 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005061951

The Telling Room

At the Telling Room, we empower youth through writing and share their voices with the world. Focused on young writers ages 6 to 18, we seek to build confidence, strengthen literacy skills, and provide real audiences for our students. We believe that the power of creative expression can change our communities and prepare our youth for future success.Our fun, innovative programs enlist the support of local writers, artists, teachers, and community groups. At our downtown writing center we offer free after-school workshops and writing help, and host field trips for school groups from all over Maine. We also lead workshops at local schools and community organizations; bring acclaimed writers to Maine to give public readings and work with small groups of students; publish bestselling anthologies of student work; and carry out community-wide writing projects and events.

Book preview

Julia Bartley

We laughed and joked about it

But then it traveled

Like a blazing wildfire

Killing everything in its wake

Can you blame it?

Our country like dry grass

Asking for it, so young and naïve

Taken from me

So little to some, but so much to me

I may

I may have had it easy, but even still

It took some time

My eyelids so heavy, my back turned to the beauty

It lay before me, but I was so clueless to its presence

Eventually

My back straightened and eyes sharpened

I saw it, the drop-dead gorgeousness

That stood before me

My whole life and I never noticed

The fields of green sprinkled with flowers

So sweet

The vibrant sunsets

Hot and spicy

The trees like soldiers

Guarding what lay before them

Forcing the air to smell like Christmas

So much was taken away

The darkness so greedy

But from it I found something so much greater

The light at the end of the tunnel

The rainbow at the end of a storm

The flower that blooms in the ashes

Maine

YOU HAVE CHANGED

Thomas Leggat-Barr

Dear Maine

You continue to amaze me every year I live in your beauty

I spend summers in a house perched atop your rocky coastline

The depths of your sea are home to millions of creatures

Schools of fish swim all around, wary of seals waiting to pick one out of the group

Shellfish nestle in the mud flats waiting to be plucked from their cozy homes

People who come from away crave the taste of your crimson blue aquamarine mascot

However, the coast is not your only gorgeous quality

I have meandered up your mountains

Mountains that stretch regally from the border to the coast

You are home to lakes filled with bounties of fish and underwater algae

Further inland I can find your potato fields, or wild blueberry barrens that feed the people

You have dense forests where the trees are always getting taller and less feeble

In the forests live creatures, some large, some small, but all enjoying the space you provide

Portland is on your southern coast, and is like no other city

It has restaurants, rich history, and wonderful people

But the people

The people are one of your greatest feats

The people that live in your depths are like no other

They are unique, they are hardworking, honest, and adventurous.

But now, now things are different

You have changed

I can’t visit all your different spots; I can’t walk about your cities without being worried

Without being worried about a thing that I cannot see, a thing that I cannot touch

I can’t live carefree anymore

I have to always be worrying about safety,

Worrying about whether I have a mask in the car when leaving my house

You have changed, you no longer have strangers walking your city streets

In the evenings after a nice meal

You have changed, no longer can people lounge over dinner in a busy restaurant

Just basking in the views of the sea below and the sun slowly descending on the horizon

You have changed,

And you have changed,

And you have changed, but not for the better

THE BREAKING POINT

Elijah Olson

I watch the spiral, everything crumbling around me

When I was in school, they said to me:

It’s okay, it will only be a few days

But it has been a few months

Even Maine, my home, the place where I am safest,

Is still not untouched by the hand of the microbe

The pines still sway but the restaurants are closed and empty

As death’s count ticks upward: Tick Tick Tick.

It feels like watching a building collapse:

The parts that were meant to be safe and hold us up

Fall down, in a tumbling mess of rubble, debris, and dust.

The pines still sway but the restaurants are closed and empty

As death’s count ticks upward: Tick Tick Tick.

I watch the spiral, everything crumbling around me

When I was in school, they said to me:

It’s all under control, you might be home for a while

But a little while has turned into a long while turned into a year

I may not ever hear the roar of a crowd

The beautiful symphony of 100 voices all crashing against each other

All scrabbling to be heard in the cacophony of language

The pines still sway but the restaurants are closed and empty

As death’s count ticks upward: Tick Tick Tick.

There seems no end. Everyone is always overwhelmed

At every moment we are at the breaking point

It feels like we are always about to collapse

Like we always have that heavy lump in our throats

Right before we cry

We canTicknot go on for long

GraphTicks and charts and anTickalysis

Cases totalTick, cases per caTickpita, cases conTickfirmed

Mean nothing to meTick

I have no powTicker over this: This is largTicker than you oTickr me

I wTickatch the spiraTickl, evTickerything crumblinTickg around mTicke

WhenTick I wTickas in scTickhool theTicky saTickid to me:

ITickt’s okay, it will only be a feTickw dayTicks.

The pines still sway but the restaurants are closed and empty

As death’s count ticks upward:

Tick

Tick

Tick

Identity

Anonymous

non•bi•na•ry

adjective

relating to or being a person who identifies with or expresses a gender identity that is neither entirely male nor entirely female.

the grass was rough, my friend laying across from me, six-foot distance. the stars stared down at us, faces blank but still watching. the cool wind snapped at our clothes and hair, flying upward. we watched for shooting stars, my question hanging heavy in the air.

i have come to learn that gender identity is a difficult thing.

with all the time with my thoughts, that idea of gender, that concept, flew to the forefront of my brain, taking control. and for a long, drawn-out moment, i had lost my sense of direction, of my identity. i had not grown up with this community, and it was all new, and confusing, and terrifying, and i simply wanted to scream.

and so, through site by site,

night after night, i explored,

but i wasn’t quite

sure.

what if is a common question for us,

constantly searching for an idea, an inkling

of who we are.

who we are as a person.

and we may not always know. because there is always more to discover, more to find, more to know.

and with that,

more,

we can expand,

grow, and show,

we are who we are.

and no one can change that.

THE MARCH OF FOREVER

Yenenesh Wilson

Woah, she said.

"Look at this dreadful place

Look at these incompetent leaders

Look at these disorganized systems,

Look at the people, so unnecessarily divided.

I thought this was the great land. I thought this was paradise."

As kids, she said, "it felt like that

paradise.

Our small youthful brains couldn’t hold the full understanding of our home, of our country, the full meaning of us versus them was far beyond us. The vast world was too large to conceive, even our town was too large to think about".

But, she continued, "as we grew older and therefore wiser, we lost our innocence little by little, we saw the world for what it really is, and we saw our unfortunate place in it.

Our paradise became a battlefield where we fought for our lives."

Taking a deep breath, she barreled on. "And why, why is it that we must feel ashamed to show our true colors? To show our beautiful skin, to show our communities bursting with culture. Why must we be ashamed? And why is it that we feel the need to apologize for unnecessary things?

Oh, and another thing,

Everyone always says that we are the future, but how can we be, if there isn’t one?

How are we to do that when each day we fear our home more and more?

How are we to do that when our brothers and sisters can’t breathe in their own home?"

All of a sudden, her foot hit a root hidden in the dirt, she was flung onto the ground.

Quickly scampering up she looked down and cursed the root, then instantly apologized, straightened her heavy backpack filled to the brim with her pain, and marched on.

Her voice breaking, she continued, "What am I to do?

After all we have been through

Innocent people dying because of a hue

Millions sick in bed

They still expect so much of me, but they don’t believe in me.

What am I to do?

And this backpack, why must I carry it everywhere I go?

I feel like Atlas

My back is weak."

How much longer? she wonders.

"They tell me forever

But forever is a long time

Forever is fields upon fields upon fields of grass touching the horizon

Forever is the deep dark sea filled with mystery

Forever is the stars and the galaxy full of emptiness

Forever is nothing."

QUARANTINE WALK

Ruben Hunter

We never used to go on walks around our neighborhood before