The Lexington Poet: Aden Ausbrook

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The Lexington School sixth-grader Aden Ausbrook has traveled an unlikely path to become a published poet

Aden Ausbrook, a sixth-grader at The Lexington School, never really fashioned himself a poet. The 12-year-old student has struggled with dyslexia and dysgraphia — learning disabilities that make it difficult for the brain to process the written word and put words on a page. So when Ausbrook learned that his poem “I Am” was chosen to represent Fayette County in a 120-county poetry project headed by state poet laureate George Ella Lyon, the 12-year-old writer was stunned.

“I did not think I was that good at poetry, honestly,” he said. “This was one of the first poetry pieces I’ve ever written.”

Under the guidance of local author Sarah Combs, who taught Ausbrook in an after-school creative writing class at The Lexington School, the poem was submitted to the project Where I’m From: A Poetry of Place, developed by the Kentucky Arts Council in conjunction with Lyon. According to KAC communications director Tom Musgrave, the statewide project has both a creative and historical bent, and has been part of Lyon’s platform as poet laureate to collect poems from each of Kentucky’s 120 counties.

The project encouraged Kentuckians to “explore the commonwealth through memory poems,” using Lyon’s now-famous poem “Where I’m From” as a guide — initially, the program planned to select one poem from each Kentucky county but later opened up to include all entries. (Ausbrook wrote the poem that was originally chosen to represent Fayette County.) Starting on Kentucky Writer’s Day in late April, the entries are now periodically being published on a special webpage hosted on KAC’s website, and are also archived at the University of Kentucky’s William T. Young library in Lyon’s collection.

Susie Lawrence at the Lexington Public Library led the committee that discovered Ausbrook’s poem. “He was very specific,” she said of the piece. “When you read the poem, you could feel what he was talking about: ‘I am the whispers of my parents late in the night, I am the swaying of the trees.’ [His piece] created a mental picture, it was very vivid and was exactly what we were looking for.”

A private school serving pre-school through the eighth grade, TLS offers a special learning center to better serve kids with learning differences, operating under the philosophy that dyslexia and dysgraphia are gifts rather than disabilities. The Learning Center is a new division of TLS and offers a ratio of one to four students per teacher. At The Learning Center, Ausbrook is encouraged to use Dragon Dictation Software to speak the stories populating his imagination, a technique that works around stumbling blocks typically associated with dyslexia and dysgraphia, such as jumbled words.

Once Ausbrook became comfortable with the dictation program, he began to explore writing on a deeper level, through TLS’ After School Fine Arts Program. Headed by director Sarah Heller, the program is in its pilot year at TLS and offers education in the visual, musical and theatrical aspect of the arts. Heller, a Chevy Chase artist, notes the program provides an after-school opportunity beyond athletics.

“Not all students are athletes but might be writers or dancers or singers or painters,” said Heller. “There are multiple forms of intelligence. The After School Fine Arts Program is trying to reach those that are underrepresented in what they’re seeking and the talents that they have.”

Heller is intent on partnering gifted children like Ausbrook with local mentors.

“It’s about building that sense of community and linking up community artists with young, natural talents,” Heller said.

One of these local artists is Combs, a Chevy Chase resident and the author of the young-adult novel “Breakfast Served Anytime.” Through the After School Fine Arts Program, Combs taught a 12-week course in creative writing. She fostered a safe, low-pressure environment for students to explore the written word and to share their work – an opportunity that appealed to Ausbrook.

“I haven’t been in a lot of writing classes,” he said. “I wanted to share my work, because I’d only shared it with my family.”

It was for an assignment for Combs’ writing class that Ausbrook penned “I Am,” the poem inspired by Lyon’s “Where I’m From.”

“I live really far out in the country, and when I was little, I’d play in the forest,” he said. “So, a lot of the poem references this one little place in the forest that was an opening, and I’d just sit there for a long time. Sometimes I would write and sometimes I would just sit there. It was a good place to think.”

When asked what he hoped readers would take away from the poem, Ausbrook considered the question for several moments. “I think people should take away what they will,” he finally said. “I shouldn’t tell them or decide what they should take away.”

Spoken like a true artist.

I Am

by Aden Ausbrook,

Age 12

The Lexington School

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