{"product_id":"birthstones-in-the-province-of-mercy-poems-9781571315731","title":"Birthstones in the Province of Mercy: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Jake Adam York Prize, a tender, yearning collection of poems that pieces together identity with the different shapes absence can take.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Blurry eyes mean a longing for home,\" writes Bo Hee Moon in her prize-winning collection, \"but we're unsure what home means.\" A South Korean adoptee raised in the United States, the poet reaches for language to confront the complex, myriad emotions that accompany understanding identity and belonging after transnational, cross-cultural adoption.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough verse both innocent and wise, the speaker searches for the memory of a birth mother who passed before they could reunite, aided only by \"my birth chart\" and \"this tiny, \/ careful body you gave me.\" To reimagine reunion, she creates a reality in which she can look into the \"fragile depth\" of her birth mother's eyes, envision her parents meeting among spring azaleas and rice paddies, and gently cleanse her mother's dying body. Transcending boundaries between generations, between life and death, she learns how to transform, how to forge an identity of her own, declaring, \"I am changing, completely, \/ behind a rice paper door.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith poems that serve as our speaker's \"loyal companion \/\/ in the burnt \/ pine and dawn,\" \u003ci\u003eBirthstones in the Province of Mercy \u003c\/i\u003eilluminates the language that nourishes the delicate and vital connection between an adoptee and her origins. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA South Korean adoptee, \u003cb\u003eBo Hee Moon\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of one previous book of poems, \u003ci\u003eOmma, Sea of Joy and Other Astrological Signs\u003c\/i\u003e, which she published under another name with Tinderbox Editions in 2021. Her poems have appeared in \u003ci\u003eAGNI\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePoetry\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePoetry Northwest\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eswamp pink\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Margins\u003c\/i\u003e, and other journals. She is a PhD student in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston, where she has received the Inprint Brown Foundation Fellowship. Moon currently lives in Houston, and you can find her at boheemoon.com.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Milkweed Editions","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51834687717650,"sku":"9781571315731","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_6848992c-a8d0-41bd-91ee-ba930238a5bd.jpg?v=1767100408","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/birthstones-in-the-province-of-mercy-poems-9781571315731","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}