Young Writers Society

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1. A Moving, Through Glass
2. Sunset Corridor
3. River Ixoras
4. Cove Silence
5. Window Door
6. Instructions for Visiting the Tree Café
7. Stone Path
8. Owl's Jar
9. Ocean Sky
10. Topsy Turvy
11. Mousedeer's Jar
12. This Just In -- No News Today
13. Front Door
14. Forest Sand
15. Planet Core
16. Floating Lake
17. Family's Jar
18. Moon Jar
19. Passion Joy
20. Transit with an Anonymous Ocean Being
21. Glass Capsule
22. Crow's Pitcher
23. That Sky Was Not A Cup
24. Firefly March
25. Greenhouse Ferns
26. Young Hour
27. An Echo, Through Trees
28. Secret Meeting
29. Bougainvillea’s Jar
30. Meadow Crystals
31. Wooden Comb
32. Water Sun
33. Lightness in a Bottle


2020 | 2021

1. A Moving, Through Glass

Mist floated past
the grey rock faces
the high slopes
and emerald hills.
where white rivers
glowed as they
travelled down
the waterfalls

to reach the green pool
by the forest school
which was swimming in light
the tail-like threads
illuminating the empty veranda,
the doorless doorways,
the tables and chairs.

The chalkboard caught
this early moon
and a thin layer of dust.
A moving, even through glass:
small windows.

In the grains
of the wooden floor,
the cold sat down
a speck fell asleep.

2. Sunset Corridor

Wide-open windows
lined the side of the corridor
that opened out to
the fields, the small white flowers,
the sunset

which crept into the building,
honey-coloured and silent
but for the flapping wings of dragonflies
muffled, as though coming from underwater,
this golden sweet water,
evening time.

Hey, Lim! Your second poem, Sunset Corridor, is so peaceful. It feels warm to me, like I'm wandering down that corridor you describe and watching the sunset. Your imagery does a beautiful job of creating a place where I quickly find myself. Great job!

Hi Liminality! I love your poems so far <33
The first one gives me a very mysterious sort of feeling, like a series of images slowly blurring into each other. I loved the description of ‘white rivers glowing’, and the way you started by describing the big features of the landscape and then in the end focusing on a single speck.

The second one gave me a serene and calm feeling, what with the sunset creeping into the building, especially the description of the flapping wings of dragonflies sounding ‘muffled’, as though underwater. It really transported me into the poem!

I’m so eager for your poems!

Thanks @AlmostImmortal and @rida! I'm so glad to hear you're enjoying these poems And I'm glad both of you are able to immerse yourselves into the poems so far - that's my goal for this NaPo, to write immersive poetry.

3. River Ixoras

White clouds trail through blue hues
mid-morning sun illuminates them
and the wisps and flecks they leave
as they locomote, painting pale streaks
across the sky.

Below young plants are opening
to collect the thoughts that fall in light:
a shard here, a fractal there,
where the red petal brightens to orange,
blooming ixoras by the temple.

And when the blossoms
turn dry and wither
they doze on the stone floor
and the cool breeze carries them
through a white hammock
to swim in the river that flows beside –
the quietest splash.

Lovely start Lim! I think your poetry is definitely succeeding in what you set out to do of creating little worlds in poems - each one is such a complete and polished reflection, it really does sort of feeling like settling down and looking around at everything. I got a little bit of Thoreau vibes from reading the first and third especially.

The end of the 3rd poem I found to be kind of cute / funny with the "quietest splash" I wasn't expecting that, but thought it was pretty cute to think of a blossom hopping into the river for a swim.

Great use of word economy throughout these too, there's no sense of any unnecessary words, these are each succinct and yet complete little scenes.

Looking forward to reading along with you the rest of the month! You're doing great already! <3

Thanks so much @lliyah! Hehe yeah I hadn't expected to write that last image in, but hey, surprise surprise~ And oh that's interesting that those ones reminded you of Thoreau. (I'd been planning to read him at some point actually, but I think it did slip my mind xD) Thanks again for your lovely comments!

4. Cove Silence

The half-moon cove
and its soft sand-beds
waited with the waves.
A half-forgotten song
thrumming from the entrances
of the caves.

Pale yellow grains made
an unexpected stir.

Was there someone,
did the padding footsteps sound
muffled by the breeze?
A lingering mist settles
and settles
and settles.

5. Window Door

The ixora woman
left a window of hers open
in the night, this finely-cut circle with a wooden lid
which let the starlight in – and something else,
someone else,

the butterfly guard, purple-orange patterns blooming
an uneven white spot
on her left wing
that did not match her right
whose edges brushed the wrinkled walls
of the small leaf house
she dared not stretch them
while inside.

The ixora woman left only that window open
which was facing the hanging bridge where
the fast-moving wing flaps resounded in the silent night
and someone would be returning
from the day’s patrol,
but returning where?

to the round cork floor, and the airy sound
it made when one walked,
the smell of a candle burning,
the crisp turn of pages,
the velvet-clad back.

The ixora woman sat and read under that window,
she responded to letters, she pored through tomes
by the glow of yellow candlelight until
the shadows flickered, and a sweet scent
rolled in from above, and the butterfly guard
landed soundlessly with a red bouquet
in her twitching feelers.

ooh I like this one a lot. it reminds me of the butterfly season by arianna emery (a short story, not a poem, but even so)

Glad to hear you enjoy that one, @BluesClues! Might give that story a read sometime, if I can find it~

6. Instructions for Visiting the Tree Café


- The sign is fine, there’s no need to pick it up, where it is – sitting on the floor for a bask in the sun. It says ‘Oak’s Kitchen’, did you know that? In our tongue. The carved letters settled deep and old.

- Walk under the lichen curtain of the cave, and don’t miss it too. Being a tree café hasn’t stopped it from being made of shapely rock, the ridges intricate under the palm, the walls cool and dark.

- You should see the trail of dandelion tufts floating, glowing white with magic, resonant ringing forcefield. Follow it to the menu stand.

- If you look, you will find the hole in the roof that lets the light in. That’s where the shyness melts away, warmed by sunlight. It’s a cold yellow beam, but refreshing, lemon-flavoured, and you should try the cakes, they are very zesty.

- In this place, we consider ‘very’ a very good word to use.

- Sit down at one of the toadstools, carefully – they’re quite springy: quite lofty in attitude and sometimes their spots wink. But they don’t usually mind being sat on, so don’t worry too much about it.

- The one at the counter, we call him Papa. Dark green leaves bush together from his chest to his feet, which rustle when the wind pours through the cave opening.

- What you do when you get here, is you pick one of the bottles humming in the pigeon hole. They are crammed and cluttered, yes, there’s not much space to carve out of stone here, but we have made do. The roots need to grow, too.

- And as a gesture of courtesy, kiss the knots in the tree that holds the walls together. Did you see it? Pale brown, seeming young-skinned even in his old age, the slender limbs that weave through the cracks in the cavern, snaking up to the cusp of the outside, quietly bursting into leaf-springs and soft grasses.

Liminality wrote:Glad to hear you enjoy that one, @BluesClues! Might give that story a read sometime, if I can find it~

it's in an anthology called elixir: stories of hope and healing edited by elizabeth jeannel of hansen house (you can order it direct from the publisher, but the shipping costs an arm and a leg, so I recommend either amazon or requesting your local library to purchase it, if they do that)