6th and final open slam in Boston Then we have semi finals and the Big Mouth Off, April 26th, 2011

If you have a life, you have a story. Bring it.
Admission $7 and $3 for students...

Brian O'Donovan

WGBH host of Celtic Sojourn will be our special guest

The theme reminded me of this poem from George Ella Lyons. Our final prompt is wide open for every kind of story....

Where I'm From I am from clothespins, from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride. I am from the dirt under the back porch. (Black, glistening, it tasted like beets.) I am from the forsythia bush the Dutch elm whose long-gone limbs I remember as if they were my own. I'm from fudge and eyeglasses,           from Imogene and Alafair. I'm from the know-it-alls           and the pass-it-ons, from Perk up! and Pipe down! I'm from He restoreth my soul           with a cottonball lamb           and ten verses I can say myself. I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch, fried corn and strong coffee. From the finger my grandfather lost           to the auger, the eye my father shut to keep his sight. Under my bed was a dress box spilling old pictures, a sift of lost faces to drift beneath my dreams. I am from those moments-- snapped before I budded -- leaf-fall from the family tree.

Listen to George Ella read the poem.

“Where I'm From” grew out of my response to a poem from Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet (Orchard Books, 1989; Theater Communications Group, 1991) by my friend, Tennessee writer Jo Carson. All of the People Pieces, as Jo calls them, are based on things folks actually said, and number 22 begins, “I want to know when you get to be from a place. ” Jo's speaker, one of those people “that doesn't have roots like trees, ” tells us “I am from Interstate 40” and “I am from the work my father did. ”

Besides being a poem in its own right, “Where I'm From” can be a map for a lot of other writing journeys. " - George Ella Lyons

massmouth and Kennedy’s offer a $50 gift certificate and a t-shirt for the winner of each monthly slam. On April 26, 2011 all the finalists will gather for a BIGMOUTHOFF story slam at Rabb Hall at Copley Square Library. massmouth will award the winners of this contest a fabulous prizes.