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“A Guide to This Book’s Poetics,” “Suggested Books on Poetry and on Adoption,” as well as a Teacher’s Guide, all by Meg Kearney, can be downloaded at no cost from the publisher’s website: www.perseabooks.com, and from www.megkearney.com.
Most of the names of bands, songs, and song lyrics mentioned in this book are written by Meg Kearney, including “When You Never Said Goodbye.” (See pages 269–270, for the full lyrics to this song. Download the song at www.megkearney.com.) References are made to two songs by other artists: “You’ve Got a Friend” by Carole King (in “Ms. R in the Park,” p. 49) and “My Father’s Eyes” by Livingston Taylor (Journal Entry #2212, p. 189).
The names of professors and classes offered at NYU are also fictional, as is the bar called “The Rock.”
About adoption registries: there are several websites that offer adoption search services. These sites maintain databases of adoptees, birth parents, and birth siblings who register their names and personal details with hope of finding a match. Some are national, some are statewide. The oldest reunion registries (both existed before the Internet) are the International Soundex Reunion Registry (ISRR), which is free; and the Adoptees’ Liberty Movement Association (ALMA), which requires a fee before any information is released. For people adopted in New York State, there is also the Adoption and Medical Information Registry, run by the New York State Department of Health. Most sites are free, but watch for fees (some are hidden) if you decide to register. In order for there to be a match, both you and the person you’re looking for must be registered on the same site. And sometimes the “match” turns out to be a mistake. Many sites will also connect you with a paid searcher, which can cost several thousand dollars. I suggest anyone deciding to go that route use only a searcher who can be recommended by someone trusted, and who asks for compensation only after successfully finding blood relatives.
In “Journal Entry #2167: January 10” (p. 30), the book Liz gives to Jan is Drive, They Said: Poems About Americans and Their Cars, edited by Kurt Brown (Milkweed, 1994).
“Torn” (p. 120) mentions a poem called “The Otter”; it’s by Seamus Heaney, found in his collection, Field Work (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976).
Pablo Neruda’s poem “Horses” is mentioned in “April First” (p. 199). The poem can be found in Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon: Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda (HarperCollins, 1997: Stephen Mitchell, translator).
The Sisters of the Joyful Resurrection is an imaginary order of nuns inspired by several exisiting convents. In doing my research, I was surprised to find that young women in the twenty-first century are still entering the religious life (though not in the numbers they did in the past). The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee, might be the fastest-growing order. At the time of this writing (2016), the average age of women entering the Sisters of St. Cecilia is twenty-three; the average age of the Sisters is thirty-six. Growing steadily in numbers, they are mostly college-educated women and many are teachers.
In Journal Entry #2222 (p. 235), Kate reads aloud about semi-cloistered communities. She is quoting from the website of the Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, an actual convent in Syracuse, New York. This site has excellent information about religious callings, life, vows, and leaving one’s family behind to enter a convent: http://www.ihm daughters.org/site/822867/page/4134480.