Category: Poetry
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Birth Mother Mercy
by Alex M. Frankel
Poetry. Adoptee Author: Alex M. Frankel Publication Year: 2013 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this site are affiliate links. We earn a small commission to help keep Adoptee Reading running whenever items are purchased via these links, at no additional…
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Unbearable Splendor
by Sun Yung Shin
Finalist for the Believer Poetry Award Sun Yung Shin moves ideas—of identity (Korean, American, adoptee, mother, Catholic, Buddhist) and interest (mythology, science fiction, Sophocles)— around like building blocks, forming and reforming new constructions of what it means to be at home. Adoptee Author: Sun Yung Shin…
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The Translation of Han
by Hei Kyong Kim
The Translation of Han is a collection of poetry and prose about the spiritual, psychological, personal and political aspects of historical and intergenerational trauma amongst a people; it explores issues of race, adoption, culture, gender, lateral oppression, violence, love, family, and grief and loss. It…
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Flip the Script: Adult Adoptee Anthology
Edited by Diane René Christian, Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston, and Rosita González
Flip the Script: Adult Adoptee Anthology is a dynamic artistic exploration of adoptee expression and experience. This anthology offers readers a diverse compilation of literature and artistry from a global community of adoptees. From playwrights to poets, filmmakers to photographers, essay writers to lyricists—all have…
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Marilyn
by Amanda Ngoho Reavey
Amanda [Ngoho] Reavey’s first book, Marilyn, began as an exploration through somatic experiments on what it means to stay and became a fragmented map of the immigration system, the international adoption process, and family. How do you articulate disenfranchised grief? How does a person who…
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Silent Voices
by Carlynne Hershberger
The story of adoption is seldom told from the natural mother’s point of view. Eleven full color paintings with narrative poetry tell a story of loss, longing, power, powerlessness, surrender, grief, family and meaning. It represents the spiritual and physical connection that women have with…
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Transformatrix
by Patience Agbabi
“They call me Jax, though my real name’s Eva / The whole of the Jackson Five rolled into one serious diva / No.1 on the guest list, top of the charts / When I make my grand entrance, the sea of sequins parts…” From Hamburg to…
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R.A.W.
by Patience Agbabi
First poetry collection by UK poet Patience Agbabi. Portions of the collection are reportedly autobiographical. Adoptee Author: Patience Agbabi Publication Year: 1995 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this site are affiliate links. We earn a small commission to help keep…
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Bloodshot Monochrome
by Patience Agbabi
A glorious poetic take on all things black, white, and read. Reinventing the sonnet, Patience Agbabi shines her euphoric, musical lines on everything from growing up to growing old, from Northern Soul to contract killers, from the retro to the brand new. Whether resurrecting the dead…
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Telling Tales
by Patience Agbabi
In Telling Tales, award-winning poet Patience Agbabi presents an inspired 21st-century remix of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, retelling all of the stories, from the Miller’s Tale to the Wife of Bath’s, in her own critically acclaimed poetic style. Celebrating Chaucer’s Middle-English masterwork for its performance element…
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The Adoption Papers
by Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay tells the story of a black girl’s adoption by a white Scottish couple- from three different viewpoints: the mother, the birth mother, and the daughter. Adoptee Author: Jackie Kay Publication Year: 1991 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this…
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Vietnamese.Adopted: A Collection of Voices
by Indigo Willing, Anh Đào Kolbe, Dominic Golding, Tim Holtan, Cara Wolfgang, Kev Minh Allen, Adam Chau, Landa Sharp, Michael Nhat
Vietnamese.Adopted: A Collection of Voices is a group of writings each in their own form and style, un-censored in content or subject matter, allowing each person to speak on what being a Vietnamese Adoptee, Adopted Vietnamese, or Vietnamese War Orphan is to them, as well…
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Requitements
by Rosemary Starace
Poems and an essay. Adoptee Author: Rosemary Starace Publication Year: 2015 (revised edition; originally published 2010) Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this site are affiliate links. We earn a small commission to help keep Adoptee Reading running whenever items are…
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Spot the Terrorist!
by Lori Jakiela
Lori Jakiela’s Spot the Terrorist! takes the reader on flights through the ordinary-turned-extraordinary, where the everyday experiences of a flight attendant become something much stranger and wilder. Adoptee Author: Lori Jakiela Publication Year: 2012 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this…
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After the Morning Calm: Reflections of Korean Adoptees
Edited by Sook Wilkinson, PhD, and Nancy Fox
Korean adult adoptees speak out in this anthology. Through memories, reflections, and poetry, adoptees speak to the range of issues that accompany adoption: feelings of belonging and difference, self and other, culture and accomodation, love and loss. We now know that it is in late…
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Shadows of a Dark-Alley Adoptee: An Adoptee’s Search for Self
by Wendy Barkett
A book of thoughts and poems from an adoptee who attempts to find the truth which is masked by lies. Her lonely travels through a world that feels dark. At times she finds a friend to ride along in this journey called life. Adoptee Author: Wendy…
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Called Home, Book 2: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects
Edited by Patricia Busbee and Trace A. DeMeyer
From recent news about Baby Veronica to history like Operation Papoose, this book examines how Native American adoptees and their families experienced adoption and were exposed to the genocidal policies of governments who created Indian adoption projects. The editors Trace A. DeMeyer and Patricia Busbee, both…
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The Girl in the Mirror: A Novel in Poems and Journal Entries
by Meg Kearney
An adopted teen’s search for her birth mother is overshadowed by a wrenching loss, dramatically told through her poems and journals. Lizzie McLane, the adopted poet-heroine of the widely acclaimed The Secret of Me, is now a high school senior, excited about her future: meeting boys,…
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The Secret of Me: A Novel in Poems
by Meg Kearney
The acclaimed story of an adopted teenager’s quest to find her place among family, friends, and the wider world. Fourteen-year old Lizzie, as well as her older brother and sister, were adopted as infants. But facts are not feelings, and what it feels like to…
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An Unkindness of Ravens
by Meg Kearney
In An Unkindness of Ravens, Meg Kearney’s poems weave voices of estrangement and redemption: mothers, daughters, lovers of gin and dead things. In the middle poems, the protagonist confronts “Raven”: a figure of guises and disguises, revealing the speaker’s fears and angst. National Book Critics…
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Home by Now
by Meg Kearney
The characters of Meg Kearney’s gritty second poetry collection travel the shadows and edges of modern life. Searching for home and knowing that, once found, home might dissolve without warning, Kearney carves a richly lyric poetry. You will hear the voices of this striking book…
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Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption
Edited by Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah, and Sun Yung Shin
Many adoptees are required to become people that they were never meant to be. While transracial adoption tends to be considered benevolent, it often exacts a heavy emotional, cultural, and economic toll on those who directly experience it. Outsiders Within is a landmark publication that carefully…
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Gardening Secrets of the Dead
by Lee Herrick
Memory, history, family, the future: these are the preoccupations of Lee Herrick’s Gardening Secrets of the Dead. Adoptee Author: Lee Herrick Publication Year: 2012 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this site are affiliate links. We earn a small commission to…
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This Many Miles from Desire
by Lee Herrick
The haunting music of Lee Herrick’s This Many Miles from Desire reflects the quest of the poet, an adoptee, to understand his place in the world: “one more child found in the world’s history/of found children.” Spiritually yearning, imagistically sharp, and lyrical, Herrick’s poems are…
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Sleeps with Knives
by Laramie Harlow
Utterly raw, painfully true poems about adoption, child abuse, life in Wisconsin and Native American history. The poetry collection includes song lyrics from the author’s time as a musician. This is Laramie Harlow’s (Tsalgi-Shawnee-Euro) first chapbook. Adoptee Author: Laramie Harlow (aka Trace A. DeMeyer, Lara Trace…
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Becoming
by Laramie Harlow
15 unforgettable prose-poems and over 20 true short stories by NDN author Laramie Harlow. Becoming is the title of her impressive (and controversial) second collection. Her sensational first book SLEEPS WITH KNIVES was published in 2012 by Blue Hand Books. Her writing about being a…
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Assembling Self
by Karen Belanger
Born and adopted in 1959, at the age of two weeks, Karen had an inherent yearning her whole life to find more out about her biological background. Plagued by what seemed to be genetic health problems and illness the need for current family medical history…
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Paper Pavilion
by Jennifer Kwon Dobbs
Winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Paper Pavilion captures the theme of transnational adoption and a powerful search for a personal history and identity from Korea to America. Adoptee Author: Jennifer Kwon Dobbs Publication Year: 2007 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon…
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Lost Daughters: Writing Adoption from a Place of Empowerment & Peace
Edited by Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston, Julie Stromberg, Karen Pickell, and Jennifer Anastasi
A collection of writings by the authors of the Lost Daughters blog. The Lost Daughters mission is to bring readers the perspectives and narratives of adopted women, and to highlight their strength, resiliency, and wisdom. Editors: Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston, Julie Stromberg, Karen Pickell, Jennifer Anastasi Adoptee Authors: Jennifer…
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Dear Wonderful You: Letters to Adopted & Fostered Youth
Edited by Diane René Christian and Mei-Mei Akwai Ellerman, PhD
A powerful book filled with thoughtful and inspiring letters. This anthology was written by a global community of adult adoptees and adults who were fostered. Each letter was penned to the upcoming generation of adopted and fostered youth. Editors: Diane René Christian, Mei-Mei Akwai Ellerman Adoptee…