Heritage Storytelling: Reflections on a “Where I’m From” Poem

Photo by Lesli Whitecotton on Unsplash

When I think about heritage storytelling, I often imagine old photographs, family trees, or carefully preserved documents and artifacts, and the stories that belong to them. But heritage is not only found in records. It lives in memory, lingering in smells, sounds, landscapes, and experiences.

In 1993, Kentucky Poet Laureate for 2015–16 George Ella Lyon, wrote her poem “Where I’m From,” a piece that has since inspired thousands to reflect on their own beginnings.¹ The poem’s structure is simple, repetitive, and rooted in sensory detail. It is not a timeline or a pedigree chart. It is a mosaic of memory and invites writers to explore their identity through layered recollections rather than chronological dates and places.

Using Lyon’s poem as a prompt, I began to consider my own roots. What places shaped me? What experiences defined my childhood? What fragments of ordinary life quietly built the foundation of who I am?

The result is a portrait of a chapter of my life story made up of the sights, sounds, and smells of ordinary family life in rural Maryland.

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Where I’m From

I am from 40 acres in The Old Line State, yellow spring daffodils along the fencerow in the back 40, sassafras and pear trees along a fencerow in the back 20. I’m from bluegill and water moccasins in “The Pond,” brackish and wild, and another pond, clean and tame, from the front 10.

I’m from Wilson’s Road—one man’s dump, another’s treasure. Why is a toilet way out here amongst the trees half buried in dried leaves? Wandering the shaded lane always hoping but never finding something worth anything.

I’m from the Poole family cemetery, thorny and unkempt, watching over the valley, their broken, faded, colonial headstones toppling over groundhog burrows. I’m from nervously keeping a watchful eye for a bony hand or foot visible in the groundhog tunnels while trying to avoid scratches from juicy wild blackberry thickets. I’m from ghostly “Mr. Poole” and dump trucks that raise their empty beds by the light of the full moon.

I’m from self-sufficiency, and a cream-colored ceramic bread bowl with thin blue and pink stripes, ready for the day’s baking. I’m from harvests of hay, field corn, and never-ending rows of vegetables. I’m from the hiss of “will it explode?” pressure canners and colorful rows of filled-to-the-brim Mason jars lining pantry shelves.

I’m from “Million Dollar Fudge” and rolled meat, cheese, and cracker platters on Christmas Eve, and Charlie Brown Christmas trees dragged in from the back 40.

I’m from cows named Friendly, and the soft contented oinking of stiff-bristle-headed sows being scratched behind their ears, and blue powdered butts of piglets after tail cropping. I’m from “the smell of money” while mucking pig pens.

I’m from being watched by mounted moose and goat heads, elk and deer antlers, squirrel and ducks frozen in time, long pheasant tails and black bear rugs. I’m from pheasants calling for their mates across the field, .22 rifles, and the smell of Hoppes.

I’m from hands covering ears from pistol shots, two trees with a beam and a winch to haul carcasses, and farm cats Ball Head and Runny Butt waiting for an entrail feast. I’m from hacksaws and freezer paper and white rectangular meat-filled packages stuffed in the freezer laid up for the winter.

I’m from scary, across-the-way, gummy-mouthed odd job worker Charles, and the Wagners with the miniature pony I longed to ride. I’m from the Lyonses whose barn was covered with white droppings from sparrows and filled with the cooing of pigeons. I’m from their horses who waited for me after school with heads over the fence for bites of grass they couldn’t quite reach and knew I’d pick for them on my trek up to the house on the hill.

I’m from cinder blocks and leaky tin roofs that need shoveling in the winter to eventual cocoa-colored brick and shingles with a deck to watch the sunrise over the trees in the East.

I’m from Dekalb and combines, bins and bags of rustle-y dried yellow field corn, and sore thumbs from shucking and shelling.

I’m from bread-bag-covered shoes slogging through mud and snow, hour-long yellow bus rides, and lying in bed on early frigid school mornings hoping for the radio DJ to announce “school will be delayed 2 hours due to ice.”

I’m from an ancient American Sycamore with peeling bark, a rope swing, and a collection of old colored bottles and kid-treasures.

I’m from Queen Anne’s lace and ticks and chainsaws spitting out sawdust, and cordwood filling the back of the truck for the cold winter ahead. I’m from poison ivy and pink blotches on scrawny arms and legs from cotton balls dipped in Calamine lotion.

I’m from standing in the back of a dump truck, wind snarling long hair, bouncing along country roads.

I’m from wooden clothespins, and pant legs dried stiff, and sheets smelling of warm grass, bleached clean from the sun.

I’m from a blue Ford and a green John Deere windrowing sweet-smelling alfalfa, orange baling twine, and scratchy rectangular bales being bucked and crisscross stacked. I’m from broken baler pins and broken plans, and trips to Southern States for new parts.

I’m from orange-spotted tiger lilies growing along the shallow creeks, sucking sweet honeysuckle flowers, and foxtails, and the hot, humid buzzing of insects in the meadow. I’m from the cicadas who can’t seem to get their engines started.

I’m from knowing what it feels like to be tired to the bone and a job well done, appreciating the simple things of life. I’m from the country.

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Poetry as a Form of Heritage Storytelling 

At first glance, a “Where I’m From” poem may appear deceptively simple, but its power lies in repetition and specific details. Each line begins with “I’m from,” anchoring the writer to place, memory, and belonging.

When most people consider recording their family history, they immediately picture a traditional narrative beginning at birth and unfolding year by year in careful chronological order. We are accustomed to telling our stories as timelines.

This poetic form works because it bypasses grand narratives and focuses instead on lived details, making the ordinary become extraordinary.

A census can tell us who lived in a household.
A land deed can tell us what property was owned.
A military file can tell us where someone served in the armed forces.

But none of these can tell us what the sheets smelled like after drying in the sun. None can capture the hum of cicadas or the nervous thrill of wandering a forgotten family cemetery.

This is where heritage storytelling through poetry becomes powerful. Poetic language captures what traditional records and orderly biographies do not: the emotion, texture, and experiences that give life its depth. Heritage storytelling allows us to preserve not just facts, but feelings.

Finding Identity Through Heritage Storytelling

A “Where I’m From” poem is not just an exercise in nostalgia; it is a reflection on identity. It asks:

• What shaped me?
• What did I inherit beyond my DNA and from whom?
• What traditions and places still live within me?

You may not have grown up on forty acres. Perhaps your memories may begin in a city apartment, coastal town, or military base. Wherever they start, the form makes room for every origin story.

In writing it down, you preserve something invaluable: not just where you’re from, but who you are. At its heart, heritage storytelling is about connection between past and present, record and memory, ancestor and descendant. Whether through poetry, oral history, or professional research, every story adds depth to the human narrative.

Writing my “Where I’m From” poem reminded me how the smallest moments of everyday life preserve the heart of our personal history. Each of us carries a myriad of moments that have shaped who we are, and putting them into words helps us see the beauty in them more clearly. I encourage you to write your own “Where I’m From” poem. Let your mind wander, follow your senses, and see what memories rise to the surface. You may discover your personal history is richer and more textured than you realized.

Where are you from?