Vignettes
By Tanya, Year 7
The vignettes below by Tanya were composed for the Story Factory Giving Shop, a poetry installation run at the Sydney Writers’ Festival 2025. The installation was based on the idea that a well chosen poem is the perfect gift to share with someone special. Story Factory asked young people in Western Sydney to write poems that celebrate their favourite things about the people they love. In a series of creative workshops, young people from Story Factory’s Year of Poetry wrote about raucous laughs, resilience and everything in between.
No words are needed
Sitting side-by-side — books in hand
Silence is words felt
― Tanya
You’re the only one who gets me to laugh
About how crazy our minds are
About how insane our lives are
And how we still go on
We will always go on
― Tanya
A watch ticking in your guts
Click, click, click
Waiting, always waiting
to explode
With a vomit of beautiful words
― Tanya
Students and Story Factory staff at The Giving Shop