Since then, the poem as a writing prompt has traveled in amazing ways. The list form is simple and familiar, and the question of where you are from Realizing this, Iĭecided to try it as an exercise with other writers, and it immediately took off. The process was too rich and too much fun to give up after only one poem. I edited them into a poem - not my usual way of working - but even when that was done I kept on making the lists. In the summer of 1993, I decided to see what would happen if I made my own where-I'm-from lists, which I did, in a black and white speckled composition book. ” Jo's speaker, one of those people “that doesn't have roots like trees, ” tells us “I am from Interstate 40” and “I am from the work my father did. All of the People Pieces, as Jo calls them, are based on things folks actually said, and number 22 begins, “I want to know when you get to be from a place. “Where I'm From” grew out of my response to a poem from Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet (Orchard Books, 1989 Theater Communications Group, 1991) by my friend, Tennessee writer Jo Carson. The eye my father shut to keep his sight.Ĭheck out the book Where I'm From, Where Poems Come From:Ĭlick here to see an inventive video featuring George Ella's reading of "Where I'm From" on The United States of Poetry episode "The Land and the People." You can visit this website to find the map where you can click on any county and read offerings from poets of all ages. My thanks to everyone at the Council, especially Tamara Coffey, who put all those poems online.
The Kentucky Arts Council has wrapped up my Where I'm From?project with a total of 731 poems from eighty-three counties.
#I am da one original archive#
We want to gather the diversity of our voices, and we plan to archive the results online and to present them, in some form, in D.C. You can listen to our interview on the National Writing Project radio here. Through our website ( ) and Facebook page, we?re collecting art from around the country prompted by that theme.
In response to the fear- and hate-mongering alive in our country today, I have joined Julie Landsman?a writer, teacher, and activist based in Minneapolis?to create the I Am From Project.