Where I'm From

This week I am feeling a little envious of a couple friends who are spending the week with a star-studded roster of Appalachian writers including Maurice Manning, Silas House, Lee Smith, Amy Greene, C.E. Morgan, and George Ella Lyon, at the Appalachian Writers Workshop in Hindman KY. My dear friend and mentor who is directing one of the workshops has been kind enough, or is it really cruel enough, to send me an email here and there to let me know how his class is going as well as who he rubbed elbows with that day. He also mentioned that I should write two poems a day, just as he has assigned his class. There is little chance of that happening but in the spirit of HIndman I wrote a poem based on a poem and writing exercise by George Ella Lyon.


Where I’m From

after George Ella Lyon

I am from the red dirt seat of cut-off jeans,
from Hostess Ham on weeknights
always served with quarts of green beans,
mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese.

I am from an out-of-plumb, white house,
birthplace of my daddy and his,
where falling rain on rusted tin
serenaded my crowded sleep.

I am from a creek full of salamanders,
almost climbed maple tree, sweet peas
picked while I dawdled to church,
wild violets gathered in tiny bunches.

I’m from guilt trips and tenacity,
from Lela’s eyes and Philo’s brains,
Pritchards I didn’t meet.
I’m from old money and clogged arteries,

from don’t slay the King’s English,
and hair like a stump full of Grandaddies,
Hellfire and brimstone, Walking through
the valley of the shadow of death.

I am from The Queen City and Curtis’s Creek,
egg sandwiches and thickened potatoes,
from my grandfather’s crooked pinky
I tried to straighten and my father’s lazy eye.

I am from the empty pages
of a third child’s baby book,
hidden pictures of kinfolk in caskets,
from the milk table and the milk glass
that survived the faces in page after page
of black and white reflections.