To begin exploring identity issues, consider a simple list poem known as “Where I’m From” or “I Am From.” As you remember people and places, smells and sounds, you start to see what shaped you and formed your values and beliefs.
The more deeply you know yourself, the more you are equipped to say what you alone can say, in a voice uniquely yours. You bring your perspective, point of view, background, stories, and passions to your work, offering a window into your corner of the world.
It’s writing to connect.
Whether with one person, or ten, or ten thousand, a writer builds bridges through stories and observations, ideas and interviews. Writers create connections. And connections can bring about change.
This podcast episode, the last in our four-part writing coach series—originally recorded and published in July 2016 with the title “Your Writing Can Change the World.”—offers a simple exercise to help you know yourself better. If you write one, publish it somewhere—on Google+, Facebook (mark it “public”), or at your website—and link to it in the comments. We’d love to learn where you’re from.
Click on the podcast player below and listen to this short episode (7:29), re-released especially for you here at Tweetspeak, from your own writing coach, encouraging you to do the work of a writer.
Related:
Writing Coach Podcast Series – Fill the Gap
Writing to Change the World, by Mary Pipher
Original “Where I’m From” poem, by George Ella Lyon
Printable template from SheLoves Magazine
Similar template and sample poem
Photo by Sharon Mollerus, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Ann Kroeker, podcaster, Tweetspeak editor, writing coach, and co-author of On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life that Lasts.
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Is your writing life all it can be?
Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two.
- Life Notes: Tea is Necessary - February 3, 2017
- Interview with an English Teacher, Pt 2: The Heroic in Literature - January 27, 2017
- Interview with an English Teacher, Pt 1: Texts and Teaching - January 20, 2017
Donna Falcone says
Wow.
Ann Kroeker says
🙂
Donna Falcone says
Writing several with intentional shift in temporal focus, location, circumstances might create a really interesting picture, too.
Ann Kroeker says
Yes, what a great idea! Have you done this yet? Have you picked an era and written some images?
Donna says
I did begin. I have one from childhood, one from treatment.
Ann Kroeker says
Well, you know I’m curious about them!
Donna Falcone says
I thought you might be. 😉
Donna Falcone says
PS I love how you said that … “written some images”
Ann Kroeker says
I’m guessing that’s particularly interesting to a writer-artist like you. 🙂
Donna Falcone says
I’m from the aches and pains of everyday life.
I am from blood tests, from Holter Monitors, echoes, MRIs and Wechsler scales.
I’m from Otolaryngologists, Neurologists, Psychiatrists, Osteopaths, Naturopaths, Accupuncturists and the ER.
I am from this it and that is it and nothing is wrong with you.
I am from too many good-byes.
I am from the blank stare against the soft yellow wall, uncountable specks on a popcorn speckled ceiling, and curtains hanging unopened on the second floor;
From hands on the stairs all the way up, and white knuckled sheer-will all the way down.
I am the golden sofa that held me up and carried secrets that were not mine to tell for a while.
I am plastic boxes bulging with capsules, B12 the hard way, and thick yellow Mepron sliding through my throat.
I am the unblooms of teasel and milk thistle, arriving in brown pharmacy glass wrapped in bubblewrap from amazon.com.
I am from tea when that’s all there is to give;
From checking in and waiting.
I am from colder than Siberia that only sleep can warm.
I am from heaven sent denial and stupid stubborn faith.
I am from Three Little Birds and love notes on the bedroom mirror.
I’m from seeking the light and finding it had never had gone out.
I’m from Buffalo New York, and shrimp scampi every Christmas Eve.
I’m from Matthew and Nathaniel cooking birthday meals of steak on the grill and Jambalaya;
From Fluffy and Gruffy, the mayor and the clown;
From Joe, holding my hand and breathing me into being over and over again.
I’m from photos in boxes stacked high against new garage walls, poems protected by Carbonite, and journals hidden where I won’t say.
I am from wishes made only in dreams and anger spoken only to a backlit screen and few memories to understand either;
From photos in flash drives and songs still trapped in six steel strings.
I am paint and ink and waterproof pens.
I am board and tile and vellum sheets.
I am mysterious mandalas and flowers forged in fire.
I am freshly black coated canvas waiting for the cool white pen.
Ann Kroeker says
Mmmmm….look at that shift. “I am from” to “I am.” Significant.
This could serve as an excellent tool to help memoirists zero in on an era to draw up memories and tangible, concrete images that impacted them. Thank you for the creative application.
Donna Falcone says
I wasn’t sure if I should switch back and forth that way,”I am from” to “I am” and back again… but it seems to convey that schizo feeling of it all – the blurring and the over identifying, the distancing and the coming back because really you can’t leave what is – that’s just the way it is… so I went for it. I put it on my blog, edited with a painting. I really found this form so helpful.
Donna Falcone says
Okay… here. Tweaked, and on my blog, and linked to you all. http://www.donnazfalcone.com/poetry/i-am-from-lyme
Ann Kroeker says
Wonderful! As I said over at your website, you have shared a beautiful window into your life, your struggles, your life-giving shift through the gift of art. In this succinct form you have captured and conveyed so much.
Donna Falcone says
Thank you! And as I said over where you said that… Sometimes I can’t find a way to write it in a way that feels ‘right’ … but this prompt/style – I don’t know why, but it really works for me. Maybe its simplicity is the key – and that it doesn’t ask too much from my unordered thoughts.
Even the fact that there was a template did not feel constraining – and of course I totally did what I wanted anyway! I think I will return to this style often, in various ways.
Donna Falcone says
That poem in my newlsetter was another offshoot from this.
Sandra Heska King says
There is so much in this I love… where do I start?
Donna says
Thank you Sandra.
May I suggest a fresh and succulent mist of tick repellent, applied and reapplied as directed? 😉
Sandra Heska King says
I sure wish this wasn’t part of your story, but what richness we might have missed…
Donna says
😉
Ann Kroeker says
Whoa, I just realized I missed your comment, Sandy. (Donna, you deal with hard things using some humor–so refreshing and real.)
If you scroll up, Sandy, you’ll see how Donna said she might zero in on a particular era, narrowing down a time frame; in doing so, she may end up with multiple “I Am From” poems, perhaps with a subtitle to each that indicates the time in her life. I think that’s a great idea for breaking down a longer series of life stages and letting each have rich bullet points.
Sandra Heska King says
This is the one I wrote in 2011. But now after hearing yours, I want to expand on it.
Horseshoe Lake
I am from black-and-white two channels,
antenna perched on a post turned
to fuzzy and not-so-fuzzy
by hand in all weather with
window open.
From always Ford, Appian Way pizza, Campbell’s soup, Evening in Paris,
and Avon lipstick samples in the mail.
From Soupy Sales, Ed Sullivan, Sky King,
Kenny Roberts the Jumping Cowboy,
and Tigers baseball.
I am from the little house,
three rooms for five,
kitchen cupboards chartreuse
and gray formica table,
hemmed by woods
and buttoned with a propane tank.
Four log cabins heated with kerosene
for company and customers,
hunters and National Guard,
and a single-seater outhouse
inhabited by snakes.
I am from the birch tree and the Juneberry,
the blueberry bog, wild strawberries, spore-spotted fern forts,
morels, and green pads with yellow bobbers
floating.
I am from one-at-a-time tinsel on the tree,
playing cards, Paul Bunyan tales, rowboats and bluegills
and Thunder Bay pike.
I am from James the shanty boy and Edwin the dulcimer player,
from William the gardener and fresh-picked rhubarb dipped in sugar.
I am from Grandma Dummer and books of the month,
crochet hooks and limburger cheese,
with old-fashioned candies, hard and cream-filled.
From paper and pencils and pages,
manual typewriters and carbon.
I am from clean-your-plate-or-no-dessert
and do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do.
I am from the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments,
letters to Aunt Emma (Sister Mary Lucinda),
Baptist friends,
a box of scripture verses,
and Sunday funnies.
I am from unleavened pancakes, ambrosia, broiled chicken,
and tiny morsels of liver swimming in catsup
swallowed whole,
soft-boiled eggs and sour cream on everything.
I am from the scent of pipe tobacco and sawdust, coffee and cigarettes,
railroad ties and forest fragrances,
and strains of Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.
I am from the Horizontal Queen of Horseshoe Lake
with the fishhook in her lip,
a bartender with his name on a bullet,
and a wrestling-loving grandmother.
I am from albums black and white and wedding check stubs,
crocheted dresses and a gold-gilded pitcher,
an Alpine costume that no longer fits and a plastic-flowered crown.
I am from wood and earth and water,
feathers and fur and scales
and deep white snow.
When I see where I’m from,
I see where I go.
The window is open.
Donna says
One at a time tinsel! Liver chunks swallowed whole!
Snakes!!
Sandra you paint such a vibrant picture here! I enjoyed tagging along like the fly in the wall of this poem.
Sandra Heska King says
Thanks. 😀
Ann Kroeker says
Yes, yes, yes! I agree with Donna. Through these details you’ve selected–through the power of specificity–we can see it all!