A Poem

Thanks to Milliner's Dream, I've tried my hand at a form poem. You can find the description of the form here. (After I did mine, I moved a few stanzas around to help it flow better.) It is based on an original poem by George Ella Lyons.

I like this exercise because it encourages writers to mix abstractions with concrete details. Anyone who has spent much time teaching writing, or reading high school and college literary magazines, will tell you that many beginning poems suffer from too much abstraction. "But I wanted it to be universal!" students will explain, confusing "universal" with "vague." The idea of "family" may be universal, but you can bring it to life with concrete details about your own idiosyncratic family.

I challenge my readers--especially those who don't think of themselves as poets--to try their own poems.

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Where I'm From


I am from a wooden spoon,
from spices and mulch.

I am from the green ranch house
warm with baking bread.
Sticky buns on Christmas morning, and steak
grilled juicy in the summer.

I am from daffodils, raspberry bushes,
grape vines, marigolds.

I am from competitiveness and nurturing.
From there’s no point in feeling sad
and you did a good job.

I am from Christmas Eve candlelight services
and stubbornness, from Grandma Jean
and Granddaddy Joe and Mom-Mom.

I am from the silence of Quaker meeting,
and wind in the trees on the hill.

From the girl with two braids who rode her pony,
from the boy who played spin the bottle in New Jersey,
from the red-haired woman who used her camera’s timer
to take bathing pictures for her boyfriend long ago.

I am from boxes of family photographs in the closet,
from my grandmother’s shelves of dusty knicknacks,
from the names on Uncle Jeff’s geneology charts,
and from the circle of faces
reflecting the candlelight at Thanksgiving.