Young Writers Project is a creative, online community of teen writers and visual artists that started in Burlington in 2006. Each week, VTDigger publishes the writing and art of young Vermonters who post their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for youth, ages 13-19. To find out more, please go to youngwritersproject.org or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org; (802) 324-9538.

California may have its scenic coastlines, New York its metropolitan hubs and Utah its stunning rock formations… but if you put it to any Vermonter, they’ll likely tell you all other states pale in comparison. You need only look around you at the autumn leaves aflame, the white-tipped mountains whizzing with skiers, and the small, close-knit neighborhoods that scaffold our lives to understand just how precious our humble realm is. This week’s featured poet, Sela Morgenstein Fuerst of South Burlington, celebrates the composition of our beloved lands and communities in response to the Tomorrow Project, a new civic engagement initiative at YWP aiming to empower the social and political voices of our future.

My true home, Vermont

Sela Morgenstein Fuerst, 11, South Burlington

Being a Vermonter is spending six months of the year wearing a jacket.

Being a Vermonter is running outside in nothing but leggings and a sweater, thinking it’s springtime when it hits 47 degrees.

Being a Vermonter is lying flat on your back in 15 inches of snow, watching the thick flakes tumble down from the sky.

Being a Vermonter is being shocked at the size of all other cities.

Being a Vermonter is knowing three out of seven people you pass on the street.

Being a Vermonter is playing on the University of Vermont Green as a preschooler, already toddling around in a snowsuit.

Being a Vermonter is biking miles and miles with your best friends every weekend, splashing through puddles as the lilacs in your neighborhood bloom.

Being a Vermonter is hiking Camel’s Hump and Mount Philo, and being so used to the Adirondacks in the distance that you forget to take pictures.

Being a Vermonter is going to a stadium and realizing it seats more people than live in Burlington.

Being a Vermonter is baking brownies and crunching through the snow to give them to your neighbors.

Being a Vermonter is reading the newspaper and joining webinars with Becca Balint at school; it’s marching in the Pride Parade while the wind rips through Church Street.

Being a Vermonter is figuring out how to protect Vermont while Vermont figures out how to protect you.

Being a Vermonter is staying at sleepaway Camp Hochelaga, the stars there tinged with sunscreen and waves.

Being a Vermonter is swimming in Lake Champlain every summer, darting through the emerald swathes of pine trees on your best friend’s motorboat.

Being a Vermonter is having to drive to Plattsburgh to go to a decent department store.

Being a Vermonter is not knowing a life without an autumn filled with fire.

Being a Vermonter is shouting the words to “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan out the bus windows as the brown and gray world disappears along the highway.

Being a Vermonter is flying anywhere warmer than here over February break.

Being a Vermonter is still believing in Champ.

Being a Vermonter is so much more than muddy springs and bonfire falls and freezing lakes that feel better than the ocean. 

Being a Vermonter is community and love and beauty all 365 days of the year. 

Being a Vermonter is poetry and nonfiction all in one. 

Being a Vermonter… well, you’re a Vermonter, aren’t you?

Why don’t you tell me.