Poetry as a Path: Where Are You From?

If you have been with me for a while, you may recall that in September 2023, I had the honor of being the opening keynote speaker for the Annual Leadership Conference for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (now called the National Alliance for Care at Home), which was held in Little Rock, Arkansas. The final keynote of that meeting was a theater group out of Minneapolis called The Pillsbury Group— they were nothing short of fabulous.

At one point during their presentation, each performed an individual poem, which began with and had the theme of “Where I’m from.” The poems had a compelling cadence. The content was colorful, entertaining, nostalgic, and deeply personal. I was enamored with these poems. They were similar, yet each was undeniably individual. I wanted to create one for myself, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it.

A few months ago, I met Alyson Shelton via Instagram, who had just edited a book of essays on sibling loss. We started to communicate, and she asked me to consider doing one of her “Where I’m From” interviews. She sent me a poem by that title by a woman named George Ella Lyon, as well as a fill-in-the-blank (Mad Libs-style) prompt to create one’s own “Where I’m From” poem. She said if I wrote one, she would like to interview me about it. The answer was an immediate and resounding yes, because this was the source of those poems I had heard at the NHPCO leadership conference.

Recently, Alyson and I had the conversation, and I read my poem live on IG. The whole thing lasted about 30 minutes, and I read the poem at the beginning. If you want, you can watch it on her YouTube channel.

If you would like to do your own “Where I’m From” poem, all of the info is included in my Self Discovery, Connection and Legacy Journaling Prompts free download, available here.

If you would like to participate in an Instagram interview with Alyson, let me know, and I will make an introduction.