Best Selling Books 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. u003e In an attempt to create an identity--to imagine a past when all biological and genealogical ties have been severed--Kearney''s poems create their own mythology in order to tell an emotional truth. A number of poems find the protagonist speaking to the character, Raven, who serves as an imaginary lover, friend, and foe: the vehicle through which the reader identifies with the speaker''s joy and angst.

Poetry. Women''s Studies. Kearney draws on her acute powers of observation, a lively curiosity, and her gift for gorgeous imagery to take us on a journey of personal exploration, discovery, and reconciliation. Surprising poems bring together the parallel but discreet worlds of humans and birds, which speak to each other across the gulf between them. With a knowledge of birds and their behavior sufficient to satisfy even the most demanding birder, but never alienating the casual observer, with wit, musicality, and her unflinching eye, Kearney gives us a page-turner we want never to end, its subject being the work in progress which is life and its abundant mysteries. "This book goes well beyond a metaphoric treatment of birds and their habits. Instead, their differing characteristics comprise a jumping-off point for a mythology of selfhood--a lens through which to examine and confront a personal history. The catalog of birds illustrates how happenstance and speculation determine who she is. Untranslatable and mysterious as any mythology, a various history of a changeable self accumulates in these inventive, charged, and often ecstatic poems. Meg Kearney''s poems both delight and complicate--at heart a spirit as unknowable and evocative as the birds themselves."--Cleopatra Mathis "Against the backdrop of her parents'' death, the trauma of the Towers, and pervasive self-doubt, a young woman traces her history of flight, offering a narrative of heartbreak spliced with humor and filtered through the raucous assemblages of birds which inhabit her, ''singing in the cage my bones make.'' If birds provide music (''She just likes to say grackle, a crack-your- / knuckles, hard-candy word'') and spiritual sustenance (''the soul is a sparrow''), they also allow the narrator to negotiate her habitat: ''"Bird seed--it''s in your hair," / my mother said, reaching for me.'' Meg Kearney has crafted a dazzling book of personal transformations, moving and memorable."--Michael Waters

The second collection of poetry by Meg Kearney, this collection explores the poet''s past family relaltionships and examines the common place events of life.

In Cardiac Thrill, Meg Kearney uses the sonnet to tell a story that is personal and poetic, medical and historical, mortal and fabled, physical and metaphysical. Her touch is deft, witty, conversational, yet capable of taking the measure (literally) of life and death. The interlocking nature of the crown of sonnets makes perfect sense in her capable hands as she, the formal prestidigitator, transforms one scenario into another. The poems have a marvelous naturalness that suits this wise, heart-tugging obeisance to the crux of our being. -Baron Wormser, author of The History Hotel

Against the odds, eighteen-year-old Liz McLane, adoptee and aspiring poet, searches for her birth mother in this sensitive and daring novel told through her own accessible and moving poems and journal entries. A student at NYU in Greenwich Village, Liz McLane is pursuing her dream of becoming a poet and, at the same time, determined to find her birth mother, no matter what the results may be. Through her journals, Liz records her struggle to navigate adoption bureaucracy and laws. In spare and poignant poems, she confides her fears and her prayers. Could her birth mother be the unknown guitarist in Washington Square Park, who sings a soulful song in a strangely familiar voice? Against a backdrop of college life—classes on Alice Munro and Billy Collins and an active social life—and with the help of her sister, friends, and a private investigator, Liz summons the courage to face the truth about her mother and herself. This is an unforgettable novel full of heart that addresses the primary questions all adoptees must answer for themselves: who was the woman who gave me life, and why did she decide to give me away? Based on author Meg Kearney’s own experiences.

The acclaimed story of an adopted teenager''s quest to find her place among family, friends, and the wider world. Being adopted is a fact of life in the McLane household: 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 be adopted is something Lizzie never dares discuss with her loving parents, let alone with outsiders. Lizzie yearns to confide in others, especially her friend, Peter. Yet something stops her. Will Peter think she is less because her birthmother gave her away? Would telling be disloyal to her adoptive parents? To make sense of her life, Lizzie pours her emotions into her poetry--list poems, sonnets, free verse, sestinas, blues--about her family, best friends, basketball, the dance. Then a tragic accident occurs, and Lizzie knows she must find the courage to speak. In an afterword, the author discusses her own adoption and the beneficial powers of reading and writing poetry. Also included are a guide to the book''s poetics and recommended books and links about adoption and poetry.

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, college, and finally finding her birthmother. Then, on the day a letter from her adoption agency arrives, her adoptive father unexpectedly dies. Lizzie, lost in grief, turns to alcohol and the wrong kind of friends, and her life begins to spiral out of control. Loved ones try to help, but only in her poems and journals can Lizzie make sense of the hurt and her relentless curiosity about her birthmother. I looked in the mirror . . . Who was that girl staring at me, blood on her blouse, black under her swollen eyes? I don''t know you, I said out loud. I don''t know you, she said back. The Girl in the Mirror is a story about love and identity—brave, vulnerable, and compelling.

Trouper, a three-legged dog, remembers his life as a stray, before he was adopted.