by Meg Kearney
Kearney frequently visits schools and college classrooms nationwide, where she reads her poetry and discusses craft. She often is a speaker at literary and adoption conferences as well. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband; their three-legged dog, Trouper; their three-legged cat, Hopkins; and—oddly—their four-legged cat named Magpie. Visit her website: www.megkearney.com.
“Song of My 18th Year,” “Now Two Haunt My Holidays,” and “Birth Mother Villanelle” were first published in Hunger Mountain, the VCFA Journal of the Arts.
The author gratefully acknowledges permission to use lines from “homage to my hips” by Lucille Clifton. Copyright © 1980 by Lucille Clifton. Now appears in The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010 by Lucille Clifton, published by BOA Editions. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Copyright © 2017 by Meg Kearney
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, audio recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Request for permission or for information should be addressed to the publisher:
Persea Books, Inc.
277 Broadway
New York, New York 10007
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Kearney, Meg, author.
Title: When you never said good-bye : an adoptee’s search for her birth mother : a novel in poems and journals / Meg Kearney.
Description: New York : Persea Books, [2017] | “A Karen and Michael Braziller book.” | Sequel to: The girl in the mirror. | Summary: “A student at NYU in Greenwich Village, Liz McLane, pursues her dream of becoming a poet while searching for and ultimately finding her birth mother. Based on the author’s experiences. Includes an autobiographical afterword.”—Provided by publisher. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016039183 | ISBN 978-0-89255-479-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: | CYAC: Novels in verse. | Adoption—Fiction. | Birthmothers—Fiction. | Universities and colleges—Fiction. | New York (N.Y)—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.5.K43 Wh 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016039183
ISBN 978-0-89255-482-9 (e-book)
Book design and composition by Rita Lascaro
Typeset in Palatino and Lucida Handwriting
First Edition