Where+I'm+From+Poem+format

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 Deborah Morgan

1. I am from tall pine trees__**,**__ Moon Pies__**,**__ **__and__** chiggers. 2. I am from a constantly changing house**,** new every two years__,__ __**and**__ no lasting. 3. I am from the dogwood tree__**,**__ mesquite brush__,__ a land where the lightning 200 miles away is on my back steps. 4.I'm from tea cakes and Indian blood, __**from**__ the Jones and the Bradfields and the Honicutts**--**stubborn, solitary, farmers **__and__** printers, argumentative **__and__** good cooks. 5. I'm from southern manners and drawl__**,**__ heat and mesquites__**,**__ West Texas and Cowboys__**.**__ Make-believe pine tree houses__**,**__ **__and__** make-believe worlds of my books. 6. I'm from homemade biscuits and gravy at Granny's **__to__** Texas barbecue and Frito pies. 7. I'm from Conservative Southern Baptists__**,**__ daughter of the preacher__**,**__ the organist at Sunday services__**,**__ town funerals and friend's weddings. 8.I'm from the heart of Dixie__**,**__ daughter of Scarlett O'Hara__**,**__ **__from__** the land of hurricanes to tornado alley**,** __**from**__ grits and red-eye gravy. 9. I'm from Honeycutt hips__**,**__ Papaw's quick Indian temper__**,**__ the Bradfield's ability to isolate yourself in a crowd of people. 10. I'm from share-cropper farmers __**and**__ grandparents__**,**__ aunts and cousins never known from the paternal side. 11 I'm from Bible drills__**,**__ piano lessons__**,**__ stock shows __**and**__ hay rides__**, from**__ daily Bible reading __**to**__ Harlequin romances**,** from birth to now...

A grown woman almost done, stirred by the memories poured together to be the woman I am now.