Just One Person by Joel Love | Composer

In the Spring of 2009, composition students at Rice University and the University of Houston were commissioned by Da Camera of Houston to create new musical works using poems written by eighth grade students from Grady Middle School. The students worked with a professional writer and responded to Da Camera's season theme "Exiles and Immigrants" and the George Ella Lyon poem "Where I'm from."

Just One Person

I am from rustling, trashed streets
Wailing police sirens
And crashing break-ins.

I am from pretty gardens
Where ugly cats play

I am from children playing
Cops and robbers
Up and down the cracked streets

I’m from my mom painting
And my aunt talking.
From my grandma cooking
And my sister playing.

I am from stretching
Rocky mattresses on a shifty carpet

From three good brothers,
Who I’ve shared my life with.
We were actually just one person.