Come Home To Kentucky
How do you define home? How does home form you? Do you choose your home or does your home choose you?
This week the Just Write Virtual Writing Group enjoyed the fourth stop on its 7-week journey with the National Writing Project’s Write Across America virtual writing marathon (you can sign up here). Each week we will revisit the invitation offered by the host site and the writing generated at the Tuesday event to find new inspiration and/or extend writing begun earlier in the week.
The July 19 stop was hosted by my National Writing Project site, the Morehead Writing Project, at the Hindman Settlement School located in Knott County, Kentucky. We drew our inspiration for this stop from our Root Deep, Grow Tall partnership with the Hindman Settlement School and the complicated, even conflicted, definition of “home”. Established in 1902, Hindman is the oldest rural settlement school in the United States. Notable poet, folklorist, and novelist James Still connected Hindman with our host institution (Morehead State University) and his work sparked ours. Learn more here about Hindman Settlement School and James Still and the complicated relationship between home and identity.
We used that complicated relationship as well as the idea of rooting deep to grow tall to select the work of 12 Kentucky poets to inspire the writing of our stop. Our Story Map of Kentucky poets situates those poets and their work in place and we invited writers to:
- Choose a line that speaks to you. Take that line as your own and see what comes next.
- Choose a word that sings to you. Meditate and reflect on the associations from that word.
- Choose an image that is arresting, surprising, thrilling, or beautiful. Write a narrative.
We also offered writers the option to write in response to the idea of “home” or one of our essential questions:
- Where are you from and how do you define home?
- How has your “home” formed who you are?
- In what ways do you choose your home or does your home choose you?
- How do you root deep in your “home”, but grow tall and find your place in the world at the same time?
IMPORTANT NOTE: A week after we hosted our stop at the Hindman Settlement School unprecedented torrential rains wrought devastating flooding on Eastern Kentucky. The entire region is experiencing unspeakable loss and the Hindman Settlement School has sustained significant damage. Honoring the schools long-standing tradition of supporting their neighbors and community, Hindman Settlement School is collecting donations to help their community by providing meals, shelter, and basic necessities.
