Becoming Joanne
by Joanne Corey
If my grandfather Giovanni
had not fled the Old Country
before the Great War,
I might have been Giovanna
or piccola Giovanina.
Born in 1960s New England,
I was Joanne —
one word —
small a —
with an e —
to avoid confusion with four classmates
who answered to that common name.
When I was eighteen,
my Latin teacher derived and gave
meaning to my name:
Joanne —
feminine of John —
from Hebrew –
variously translated as
God is gracious- —
Gift of God —
God’s gracious gift.
A daunting aspiration
as I began adulthood.
After decades of striving
to fulfill the promise,
to be worthy of my name,
in my sixth decade,
wisdom dawns.
God freely gifts grace.
I AM,
have always been,
will always be
Joanne —
God’s gracious gift —
living out a universal call.
PHOTOGRAPH: The author’s visiting her daughter in Honolulu for Mother’s Day (May 11, 2014).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joanne Corey lives in Broome County, New York, where she spends her time writing, blogging, caring for family, volunteering, and tilting at windmills for various environmental and social justice causes. Recent publications include the spring 2015 anthology of the Binghamton Poetry Project and the anthology Candles of Hope (GWL Publishing – UK), her first international print publication. She invites you to visit her eclectic blog: http://topofjcsmind.wordpress.com.
[…] promised, I’m sharing the link to my newest poem publication: https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/becoming-joanne-by-joanne-corey-all-about-my-nam…. It is part of their “All About My Name” poetry series. Please visit – comment […]
Joanne, let me give you a hand. Enjoyable write.
Thank you very much! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
[…] Last month, my poem “Becoming Joanne” appeared on the Silver Birch Press blog as part of… […]
[…] for their “All About My Name” series. They kindly included it in their series and I posted the link, so some of you may already have read it, but I know some people don’t click on links, so I […]
[…] I thought I’d share again a poem that I wrote for the Silver Birch Press “All About My Name” series prompt. It appeared there on June 29, 2015. […]