If you were asked to write about your childhood, grounded in place and sensory detail, what would you write? On which aspects of your childhood would you focus? Which family idiosyncrasies would you describe?
In 1993, George Ella Lyon published her poem, “Where I’m From” with her answers to those questions. Since then her poem has become a model for others to capture the essence of their childhoods. You can read the original poem here.
to write their own “Where I’m From” poems using a prompt created by Fred First. Those people share their poems with Alyson on Instagram Live, and the recordings are available on Instagram, YouTube and Alyson’s Where I’m From podcast. You can read some of the story behind this series, and see a list of participants, on Alyson’s website. Scroll to the bottom for her invitation to join in.
When I set out to write my own poem based on the prompt, I was struck by the multitudes contained within a single childhood. The different places I lived—San Fernando Valley and the Conejo Valley. Where my family vacationed—southern California beaches, the Sierra Mountains, Lake Mead. Happy times—our annual trip to Disneyland. Challenging times—moving to a new town. An assortment of school experiences.
How to scale down a childhood into a single poem? Kelley Korbin, a writer friend who’d already been on Alyson’s podcast, suggested to pick a particular age. I sort of did that, and also focused on the immediate neighborhood I grew up in. Even though Alyson gives writers the freedom to stray far from the prompt, I chose to stick close to the form of the original poem. Those constraints helped to whittle down the many ideas I had into one concise poem about my childhood.
Besides reading my poem, I chatted with Alyson about the process of writing the poem and also digressed into discussing my current work-in-progress, my Armenian family memoir. You can listen to my poem and our conversation on YouTube here.
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Book of the month: Kelli Russell Agodon’s Accidental Devotions. A vibrant, embodied poetry collection that will remain on my nightstand as I want to read it again!
What book has held your attention this month?
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Work-in-Progress: I’m currently restructuring and revising the first five chapters of my Armenian family memoir into a new beginning. I’m enjoying pulling the chapters apart and weaving them back together. My mantra is “try this” and not get bogged down in “is this going to work.” Not sure if I’ll end up with one long segmented chapter or multiple chapters. Too soon to tell.
If you think about your childhood, what sensory memories pop into your head? One of mine that didn’t make it into my poem was the paint thinner my father soaked into a rag to rub the globs of tar off my feet (and my sisters’ feet) after a day at the beach. The clingy black globs, the fumes of the thinner, the rag scrubbing the bottoms of my feet—I still feel and smell those moments.
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Thank you for reading! Writing is a lonely endeavor and your presence here brightens my day!
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