Where I'm From...

Appalachian poet George Ella Lyon's poem, "Where I'm From," evokes the particular world of a particular childhood through a poem quilted from scraps and patches of memory... Memories of specific sights and sounds, objects, instructions, tragedies, and delights. It has been used in classrooms around the world as a prompt for people to write their own versions of, "Where I'm From." More recently in response to the extreme divisions riddling our world, Lyon was inspired to start co-create the, "I Am From Project." Because, in her words, "In such an atmosphere, how can we find our voices and make them heard? One avenue is through poetry, that heart-cry that comes to us in times of love and crisis." 

Read her poem and learn more about this beautiful effort here. 

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.

- George Ella Lyon