A Light in the Fog: Creative Writing about Adoption at the NeMLA 2024 Conference

Adoptee Poetics: an overview of history and present day - presented by Sarah Audsley

In 1997, Seeds from a Silent Tree: An Anthology by Korean Adoptees, the first adoptee poetry anthology, was published. This was an important moment, but not the peak of adoptees' contributions to the contemporary American literary landscape. In fact, since then adoptee poets have been adding to a growing body of work defined as adoptee poetics. A subset of American poetics, adoptee poetics is the imaginative space and body of work by adoptee poets.

The publishing history of adoptee poetics will be outlined and examples of contemporary adoptee poets will be offered, including poems by Tiana Nobile, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Lee Herrick, Sun Yung Shin, among others. Sarah Audsley, adoptee poet and member of The Starlings Collective, a collective of diverse and distinct voices of BIPOC adoptee writers and artists, will present on Adoptee Poetics and also read from her debut poetry collection, Landlock X (Texas Review Press, 2023).

Event Date: Sunday, March 10

Co- Presenters: Jerry Wemple, Didi Jackson
Event Time: 10:30 am - 12:15 pm
Room Location: Gardner A