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.
Poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg at the Hike You! Show Fall Art Scene 2026
The Gifted Program at Byron
Elementary School
Was two isolated makeshift 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
Ultimately declaring anarchy
Though the mordent precision
Of our isolated orbit
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
