HARRIET WEIGHS IN ON "POETS ON ADOPTION"

over at The Poetry Foundation. Great to see the Word being passed around. And more poets soon to come! Here's an excerpt from Alan Gilbert's write-up on POETS ON ADOPTION:

Some writers, such as Dana Collins and Michele Leavitt, describe reuniting with their biological families, while Nick Carbò says he has no interest in doing so. Many of the entries place the experience of adoption within frameworks of ethnicity and class. Christina Pacosz unsentimentally writes, “Now I see clearly that most adoptions are moving from one class to another. From a lack of resources/finances to more abundance and opportunity. This has nothing, necessarily, to do with love.” A number of contributors talk about nation. Marcella Durand discusses what it’s like as a white parent to have adopted an African American child: “Maybe because our story is also political in that we are a transracial family, but with a twist, in that my son, while a domestic adoption, has a birthmother from other colonized and colonizing countries and, because of my connection to the colonizing country, she chose us.”

Along with Pacosz, Sharon Mesmer contributes the longest post—a haunting and vivid narrative about her adopted sister who may or may not have been molested by their father. The piece provides an insight into her work I’d never had before. Susan Schultz provides the most theoretical framework for discussing the relationship between poetry and adoption—and in the process outlines a poetics of adoption: “Just as no poem is utterly original, so no poem is not without its adopted language.”

I'm always looking for more participants. You are invited to read the Call to Participation for POETS ON ADOPTION.