This activity was inspired by George Ella Lyon’s Where I’m From poem. My students participated in creating poems about where they were from and I wrote alongside them. The original poem starts with “I am from clothespins,…”

Where I’m From

I’m also from clothespins,
no electricity and bathing in the creek.
I am the apple branch
and my grandmother’s anger,
that left a lasting bruise to ponder.

I’m from abandoned lands,
and starving bowls.
I’m from never mending hearts,
and lambs I’ll never touch.

I’m from maids,
and Mozart’s park.
Where again a bruise was caught.
The Singapore Lion spills its guts,
but the silence of fashion shuts me up.

On my shelf I keep a box,
that reminds me
where I’m from.
Notes and letters,
I want to burn,
because these memories
do not need to live.