Modeling Your Writing

One of the techniques I love to use when teaching young poets is modeling poetry directly from well-written, classic poetry. Here, I’ve used a poem called “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon. I analyzed the poem, line by line, to determine what each line was about and then wrote it to reflect my life. Granted, it’s not an “original” poem, but it’s an excellent exercise to play with words. Here is my version of her poem:

based on Where I’m From by George Ella Lyon

 

I am from white shoe polish

from Murphy’s oil soap and Johnson Wax

I am from the face powder under my mother’s dressing table
(fine, smooth
it smelled like roses.)
I am from the pussy willow bush,
the Catulpa tree
whose white flowers I remember
cascading with confetti strings.

I’m from panuche and bowling balls

          from Ruth and Robert.
I’m from the pinochels
          and Michigan rummies,
from You can be anything! And Listen to me!
I’m from thou shalt not
         under a canopy of crossed swords
         and the Act of Contrition on a cheat sheet.

I’m from Emil and Magdelina’s branch,

chicken and dumplings and sauerkraut.
From the lungs my grandmother sacrificed
          to her cigarettes,
the finger my father had sewn back on during the war.
 

In the upstairs closet is a potato chip carton

protecting old pictures,
a puzzle of known and unknown faces
to float in the recesses of my mind.
I am from those moments --
snapped before I was thought of --
the oldest branches from the family tree.

                              - Roberta Worthington