This week we’ve been writing Where I’m From poems, fashioned after the famous poem by George Ella Lyon. Here is the original:

Where I’m From

I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening,
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush
the Dutch elm
whose long-gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.

I’m from fudge and eyeglasses,
from Imogene and Alafair.
I’m from the know-it-alls
and the pass-it-ons,
from Perk up! and Pipe down!
I’m from He restoreth my soul
with a cottonball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.

I’m from Artemus and Billie’s Branch,
fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
to the auger,
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.

Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments–
snapped before I budded —
leaf-fall from the family tree.

by George Ella Lyon

At first, we read the poem and went . . . huh???  It’s not an easy poem to understand after just one reading.  So, we took it slowly, read a few lines at a time and tried to figure out what G.E. Lyon was telling us about her childhood.  That helped us to focus on a few words at a time, and we discovered that Lyon provided us with some good clues.  

Then, we made a list of the kinds of things that Lyon spoke about in her poem to give us some ideas for our own.  We brainstormed ideas about our own lives and tried to use descriptive phrases to make our poems personal and intriguing.  We wanted to give our readers enough information to get them thinking.

We looked at the structure of the poem, at the stanzas (the poetic paragraphs) and the line starters.  We decided that we didn’t want each line to start the same way (BORING!!!!), but that repeating the ‘I am from’ and ‘I’m from’ and ‘from’ starters here and there would give our poems structure.  

Then, we wrote.

You can read all of our poems by using the blog list on the right hand side of the screen.

 

And here is mine:

Where I’m From

I am from the red kitchen table with matching chairs,
from quiet talks and rowdy board games.
From the legend of the Barclay gang,
and playing on the truck in the driveway.

I’m from lunch with the Flintstones,
From Sunday BBQs with the whole gang,
sleeping in the sun
and running in the streets.
I’m from the smell of dad’s pipe
and mom’s apple cake.

I am from Laura’s voice, soft comfort and good advice,
from three of us on New Year’s Eve waiting for number four.
I’m from the furniture that Dad made,
hands worn from the day
spirit never dampened.

I’m from singing the Chattanooga Choo-choo with Sarah
and long walks downtown with Karen.
From Saturday trips to the library,
Twelve books for 14 days
And from waiting in Eva’s living room
to tap the ivory
Fletcher-Kincaid and the scales that made me stronger.

I’m from the bullet in my father’s chin
the war stories he told,
sometimes with vim, sometimes with a tear in his eye.

I am from the Honda,
bugs on my visor
knees buckling in the wind.
From exotic voyages to far off places, alone
and with friends.
I’m from paint swirls and slide-rules
from chalk dust and apples.

I’m from cheering from the bleachers
at that save he made
and the tournament they won,
and cheering in the arena
at the graceful dance of two tiny champions.

I am from him,
lame jokes,
crazy made-up lyrics
and the life we made together
From shoe-shopping and Mario Cart,
from band aids and bruises
from Kiss it Better and I’m Not Tired

I’m from the zesty grandmother who stayed wonderfully late
and the sister who left tragically early
heart torn from my bosom
may she rest peacefully now and forever.