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Young Writers Society


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You should check for any Miss Spellings.
While you ponder this, enjoy a poem:


Paper Nautilus, The (1961)
by Marianne Moore

For authorities whose hopes

are shaped by mercenaries?

Writers entrapped by

teatime fame and by

commuters' comforts? Not for these

the paper nautilus

constructs her thin glass shell.



Giving her perishable

souvenir of hope, a dull

white outside and smooth-

edged inner surface

glossy as the sea, the watchful

maker of it guards it

day and night; she scarcely



eats until the eggs are hatched.

Buried eight-fold in her eight

arms, for she is in

a sense a devil-

fish, her glass ram'shorn-cradled freight

is hid but is not crushed;

as Hercules, bitten



by a crab loyal to the hydra,

was hindered to succeed,

the intensively

watched eggs coming from

the shell free it when they are freed,--

leaving its wasp-nest flaws

of white on white, and close-



laid Ionic chiton-folds

like the lines in the mane of

a Parthenon horse,

round which the arms had

wound themselves as if they knew love

is the only fortress

strong enough to trust to.



There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well to worth staying up all night to finish.
— Lemony Snicket