Where I’m From

Where I’m From Poetry

George Ella Lyon’s poem,  “Where I’m From,” is credited as the inspiration for the many “Where I’m From” poems written by others around the globe.  Here is her poem:

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.

Poems Inspired by Ms. Lyon’s Poem and Posted on YouTube 
Some of these videos are straight run-through recordings of the authors reading their poems.  Others are short movies whose images inform our interpretations:

Resources for Creating Your Own “Where I’m From” Poem 

Poetry Center – Folk Songs

A Change is Gonna Come

 

America by Neil Diamond

 

Another Day in Paradise by Phil Collins

 

Everyday People  by Sly & The Family Stone

 

Farmer Refuted Lin Manuel Miranda

 

For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield

 

Imagine by John Lennon

Times They Are a Changin by Bob Dylan

https://youtu.be/JxvVk-r9ut8

 

 

 

Turn! Turn! Turn!  by The Byrds

 

War by Edwin Starr

 

What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye