Where I’m From Rita Sims Quillen

When READING NATION editor Mandy Haynes asked me to contribute something to a new feature she was starting called “Where I’m From” for writers featured in the magazine, I chuckled out loud. I don’t think she had any idea that the title was the same as a poem by my friend and noted Kentucky children’s author and poet, George Ella Lyon. The poem has become an international phenomenon as a wonderful writing exercise, given by countless writing teachers like myself, as a way to introduce students to writing. Thousands of people from all over the world have used George Ella’s poem as a template to write their own story in a little poetic autobiography of images and figurative language. So here’s my attempt to tell you a bit about where I’m from, with a lot of family history and personal geography presented in the lines. Thanks to George Ella for this incredibly inspiring prompt and to Mandy for the invitation!

Where I’m From Rita Sims Quillen

I’m from wringer washers, Pine Sol and Sevin Dust

I’m from a rocky garden lot beside a stunning Rose of Sharon

From my father’s grafted apple trees

Whose blossoms floated like dreams above my head.

I’m from banana pudding and pipe smoke

From Ethel and Carrie

From tend-your-own-business

And what-goes-around-comes-around.

I’m from Bible school Kool-Aid and Psalm 23.

I’m from Roberts Creek and the Holston River

From chicken and dumplings and boiled lemonade

From the bad heart that took my granddaddy at 38,

The high fall my father survived.

Under the huge maple at my grandmother’s house

I watched roaring freight trains blow by

From a coal town where my family started,

Headed toward the city where the future lay,

Me caught betwixt and between

On the margin, on the edge of something

Straddling the lines of time.