Zombie Logic Review is the online literary magazine of Zombie Logic Press, one of the Midwest's oldest independent literary presses. It is edited by Thomas L. Vaultonburg and contains poetry, webcomics, artwork, and short videos. Zombie Logic Review publishes dadaist, surrealist, Outsider, and Outlaw poetry.
Monday, February 27, 2012
The Gifted Program (Why Poems Fail)
A poem can fail because you're too close to it. Or you so desperately want to say something that you trip over your own words. Sometimes, ironically, you're the worst person to tell your own story. This is a poem that doesn't quite work the way I wanted it to. I'm hoping it will come around again with some new insights because I want to tell this story.
The Gifted Program at Byron
Elementary School
Was two isolated makehift cubicles
Shoved into one corner
Under a map of Antarctica where me
And Michael Robinson
Studied humanity
Antarctica is the place where
Special people go,
Ms. Stieglitz said
We spent the year alternately
Being President, Vice President
Ulitimately declaring anarchy
Though the mordent precision
Of our isolated obrbit
Assured nothing would ever be
Out of place
They fed us Animal Farm,
Rice crispy treats,
All the loneliness the "special"
Amongst us deserve as they learned
To make more and more elaborate
Dunce caps out of papier mache
You designed something I can't
Even pronounce, died last week
Maybe you've gone back to Antarctica
I hear they need an Ambassador
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I'm never sure if a poem is good or bad or what makes it so. What I know is this poem makes me mad.
ReplyDeleteThat's just the way they did it then. I think they did me a favor because instead of learning how to make a clay ashtray I read book after book after book.
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