South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley starts her second term today. But absent from the inaugural ceremony will be a long-standing tradition: a poem read by the state's poet laureate.
State officials say they cut the two-minute poem for time, but some residents suspect it was the mention of slavery that got it tossed.
Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth has written poems for South Carolina's past three inaugurations. She describes those efforts as "safe."
The poems leaned heavily on nature and animals.