8 I/ J "Where I'm From..." Poems

Read the "Where I'm From" pieces by George Ella Lyon and Willie Perdomo. Click on the "comments" button below, type your emulation then hit the "post comment" button.

Writing Directions:(20-30 lines)
--Emulate the repeating, sometimes parallel structure of these poems ("Where I'm From... I am From...I'm From").
--Emulate the usage of concrete sensory detail-- the first 5 lines of the G.E. Lyon poem illustrate this.
--Use at least 2 lines of figurative language in your writing
--Write about your own life, heritage, family names, conflicts, culture, food, travel etc.



Where I'm From
By George Ella Lyon

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.





Where I’m From
by Willie Perdomo

Because she liked the “kind of music” that I listened to and she liked
the way I walked as well as the way I talked, she always wanted to
know where I was from.
If I said that I was from 110th Street and Lexington Avenue, right
in the heart of a transported Puerto Rican town, where the
hodedores live and night turns to day without sleep, do you think
then she might know where I was from?
Where I’m from, Puerto Rico stays on our minds when the fresh
breeze of café con leche y pan con mantequilla comes through our
half-open windows and under our doors while the sun starts to rise.
Where I’m from, babies fall asleep to the bark of a German
Shepherd named Tarzan. We hear his wandering footsteps under a
midnight sun. Tarzan has learned quickly to ignore the woman who
begs her man to stop slapping her with his fist. “Please, baby! Por
favor! I swear it wasn’t me. I swear to my mother. Mameee!!!” (Her
dead mother told her that this would happen one day.)
Where I’m from, Independence Day is celebrated every day. The
final gunshot from last night’s murder is followed by the officious
knock of a warrant squad coming to take your bread, coffee and freedom away.
Where I’m from, the police come into your house without
knocking. They throw us off rooftops and say we slipped. They shoot
my father and say he was crazy. They put a bullet in my head and say
they found me that way.
Where I’m from, you run to the hospital emergency room because
some little boy spit a razor out of his mouth and carved a crescent
into your face. But you have to understand, where I’m from even the
dead have to wait until their number is called.
Where I’m from, you can listen to Big Daddy retelling stories on
his corner. He passes a pint of light Bacardi, pouring the dead’s
tributary swig onto the street. “I’m God when I put a gun to your
head. I’m the judge and you in my courtroom.”
Where I’m from, it’s the late night scratch of rats’ feet that
explains what my mother means when she says slowly, “Bueno, mijo,
eso es la vida del pobre.” (Well, son, that is the life of the poor.)
Where I’m from, it’s sweet like my grandmother reciting a quick
prayer over a pot of hot rice and beans. Where I’m from, it’s pretty
like my niece stopping me in the middle of the street and telling me
to notice all the stars in the sky.