Kimberly O'Connor

Hello!

My poem today over at Tupelo Press’s 30/30 project is called “Appalachian Omens–an index.”

I’ve been dreaming up ways to transform my manuscript Dear America into a new book–I’m looking to make some of the ideas more vital, immediate, and personal. Part of that work has been thinking about the concept of “my people.” I actually did Ancestry.com to see where my people are from. Not surprisingly: they are from Appalachia, with roots in Ireland, England, Scotland, and Germany. (Like all white Appalachians, I’ve been told I had a Cherokee great-great-grandmother, but no such evidence of that in my DNA.)

I started listening to this podcast Grow Where You’re At in which two Appalachian female homesteaders with delightful accents talk about farming and Appalachian culture. In one of their episodes, they talk about folklore and old sayings. The episode captivated me and as I listened, I started taking notes on post-its.

I had the idea that I would turn them into a poem somehow, and yesterday was the day I decided to try it. I arranged all my post-its and started playing around. At first I tried it as a lyric poem but I wanted to incorporate symbols and such. There is an essay I use in my online creative writing class called “Miscarriage” by Ingrid Jendrezejewski where the author writes an essay about a miscarriage in the form of computer coding. I know almost nothing about coding, but I pulled out the essay for inspiration.

After a couple of drafts I had settled on a form and I wrote out the poem. Here are the first few lines:

Appalachian Omens: an index 

Angel: if dimple + cheek, touched by 

Apron: if man wipes hands on, marry (see [marriage], [wife]) 

Babies: if [dream], [death]; if [cats], breath in danger (see [cats], [death]) 

Beauty: if smoke follows, have (see [smoke], [apron]) 

Bear: if [dream], see [death]  

You can read the rest over at Tupelo’s May 30/30 page (and if you want, donate to my project here!)