I am not yet ready to call myself a teacher of poetry, but in the past year I have been a poetry workshop leader on a few occasions. One evening last month I arrived at Watkins College, a Nashville fine arts and design school, prepared to be the substitute teacher for my friend Gloria Ballard’s writing class.

With a little experience behind me, I felt pretty confident about my plans for the evening. I was armed with a stack of handouts containing poems by some of my favorite contemporary poets from the Southeast: Ron Rash, Darnell Arnoult, Bill Brown, Jane Gentry, Michael Chitwood, and Diane Gilliam Fisher, just to name a few. My rationale for selecting these poets, besides the fact that their work really resonates with me, is that these are people who often read and teach at events throughout the region and may therefore be more personally accessible to my students than the rock stars of poetry, such as Billy Collins and Mary Oliver.

The class usually had 7 students, Gloria had informed me. Tonight only 4 showed. That fact alone triggered the slightest gnaw of doubt in my stomach. I hate that poetry has such an off-putting effect on some. Then I started interacting with the class and my misgivings grew. All of the students  informed me that they weren’t currently writing poetry, and only one had written any poetry as an adult. One woman was very young; another had lived a long time in the Northeast; yet another identified herself as Chicana. “Diversity,” I chastised myself.  Why hadn’t I picked a set of poems that represented more cultural diversity?

We read and discussed a couple of poems and then moved to our first exercise, based on a poem called “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon. “Where I’m From” is a simple poem in which the speaker lists specific foods, places, people, mementos, etc. from her childhood.  In the fifteen-plus years since George Ella wrote her poem, it’s become internationally known as a writing prompt for people of all ages. As I read my own version, every Southern, rural reference popped out at me: Loretta Lynn, trips to a grist mill in a wagon, the word “mamaw,” and even Billy Carter (no kidding, Billy Carter is in my “Where I’m From” poem). I felt like my background was very different than that of my small audience. Would these students relate to me at all, I wondered? More importantly, would they relate to the poems I had chosen to share?

The students were great to share their own work through the night, and to ask a lot of questions, but at the same time they were more subdued than other groups I’ve been with. When I left, I was unsure of whether I’d reached them at all. Then a couple of weeks later, I got an email from Tessa Lemos Del Pino. Her own “Where I’m From” poem, entitled “soy de tortillas y tamales,” was forthcoming (and is now published) on Tiki Tiki, a Latino cultural blog.

“You opened my eyes to the world of poetry,” she said.

I sat at the computer with tears in my eyes.

My point – other than to encourage you to see where your own “Where I’m From” poem takes you - is that we have to risk sharing our true selves. Just as there is power in admitting our dreams, there’s also power in acknowledging our history. Even when it’s not all pretty or polished. Even when it’s not like a friend’s, or co-worker’s, or even a stranger’s.

Where I’m from – my heritage and history, my triumphs and disappointments, my education and interests - undoubtedly affects everything that resonates with me – poetry, art, music, people, places, everything. So in writing down where I’m from, in exploring all those influences, I tap a vein of both self-awareness and truth that makes me MORE myself.

Will everyone “get” me? No. But will I find art, relationships, and lifestyle choices that better suit the real me? That make me, as the Army used to say, be all that I can be? Absolutely.

One of my favorite quotes is from Martin Buber in The Way of Man, in which he says, “Mankind’s great chance lies precisely in the unlikeness of men, in the unlikeness of their qualities and inclinations.”

For a few mintues on that night in poetry class, I forgot Buber’s words. I forgot the redemption of being authentic and unique. Fortunately, since I was the “teacher,” I had to forge ahead, risking what these other people would think of my words and my choices. Today, knowing I made a difference in another person’s artistic enjoyment and self-expression, I’m so glad I did.

Now, where did you say you’re from?

Kory Wells would like to say she brazenly tossed aside her twenty-year career as a software developer to forge a lucrative career in poetry. She’s content to report that she now writes poetry, prose, corporate communications, and the occasional snippet of software code in a life-work balance that functions pretty well most of the time. Author of the poetry collection Heaven Was the Moon, she’s been recognized by Ladies’ Home Journal for her “standout” writing in the anthology She’s Such a Geek. Visit Kory's website.
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