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The Adoption Papers by Kay, Jackie
Jackie Kay tells the story of a black girl's adoption by a white Scottish couple- from three different the mother, the birth mother, and the daughter.
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First published December 14, 1991
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About the author
Jackie Kay
106 books436 followersBorn in Glasgow in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father, Kay was adopted by a white couple, Helen and John Kay, as a baby. Brought up in Bishopbriggs, a Glasgow suburb, she has an older adopted brother, Maxwell as well as siblings by her adoptive parents.
Kay's adoptive father worked full-time for the Communist Party and stood for election as a Member of Parliament, and her adoptive mother was the secretary of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
Initially harbouring ambitions to be an actress, she decided to concentrate on writing after encouragement by Alasdair Gray. She studied English at the University of Stirling and her first book of poetry, the partially autobiographical The Adoption Papers, was published in 1991, and won the Saltire Society Scottish First Book Award. Her other awards include the 1994 Somerset Maugham Award for Other Lovers, and the Guardian Fiction Prize for Trumpet, based on the life of American jazz musician Billy Tipton, born Dorothy Tipton, who lived as a man for the last fifty years of her life.
Kay writes extensively stage, screen, and for children. In 2010 she published Red Dust Road, an account of her search for her birth parents, a white Scottish woman, and a Nigerian man. Her birth parents met when her father was a student at Aberdeen University and her mother was a nurse. Her drama The Lamplighter is an exploration of the Atlantic slave trade. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in March 2007 and published in poem form in 2008.
Jackie Kay became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) on 17 June 2006. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Kay lives in Manchester.
Jackie Kay was born and brought up in Scotland. THE ADOPTION PAPERS (Bloodaxe, 1991) won the Forward Prize, a Saltire prize and a Scottish Arts Council Prize. DARLING was a poetry book society choice. FIERE, her most recent collection of poems was shortlisted for the COSTA award. Her novel TRUMPET won the Guardian Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the IMPAC award. RED DUST ROAD, (Picador) won the Scottish Book of the Year Award, was shortlisted for the JR ACKERLEY prize and the LONDON BOOK AWARD. She was awarded an MBE in 2006, and made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002. Her book of stories WISH I WAS HERE won the Decibel British Book Award.
She also writes for children and her book RED CHERRY RED (Bloomsbury) won the CLYPE award. She has written extensively for stage and television. Her play MANCHESTER LINES produced by Manchester Library Theatre was on this year in Manchester. Her new book of short stories REALITY, REALITY was recently published by Picador. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.
Kay's adoptive father worked full-time for the Communist Party and stood for election as a Member of Parliament, and her adoptive mother was the secretary of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
Initially harbouring ambitions to be an actress, she decided to concentrate on writing after encouragement by Alasdair Gray. She studied English at the University of Stirling and her first book of poetry, the partially autobiographical The Adoption Papers, was published in 1991, and won the Saltire Society Scottish First Book Award. Her other awards include the 1994 Somerset Maugham Award for Other Lovers, and the Guardian Fiction Prize for Trumpet, based on the life of American jazz musician Billy Tipton, born Dorothy Tipton, who lived as a man for the last fifty years of her life.
Kay writes extensively stage, screen, and for children. In 2010 she published Red Dust Road, an account of her search for her birth parents, a white Scottish woman, and a Nigerian man. Her birth parents met when her father was a student at Aberdeen University and her mother was a nurse. Her drama The Lamplighter is an exploration of the Atlantic slave trade. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in March 2007 and published in poem form in 2008.
Jackie Kay became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) on 17 June 2006. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Kay lives in Manchester.
Jackie Kay was born and brought up in Scotland. THE ADOPTION PAPERS (Bloodaxe, 1991) won the Forward Prize, a Saltire prize and a Scottish Arts Council Prize. DARLING was a poetry book society choice. FIERE, her most recent collection of poems was shortlisted for the COSTA award. Her novel TRUMPET won the Guardian Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the IMPAC award. RED DUST ROAD, (Picador) won the Scottish Book of the Year Award, was shortlisted for the JR ACKERLEY prize and the LONDON BOOK AWARD. She was awarded an MBE in 2006, and made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002. Her book of stories WISH I WAS HERE won the Decibel British Book Award.
She also writes for children and her book RED CHERRY RED (Bloomsbury) won the CLYPE award. She has written extensively for stage and television. Her play MANCHESTER LINES produced by Manchester Library Theatre was on this year in Manchester. Her new book of short stories REALITY, REALITY was recently published by Picador. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
March 7, 2017
The Adoption Papers is the story of a girls adoption, by a white Scottish couple. It is told by several different viewpoints. The mother, the birth mother and the daughter.
I was adopted at a few months old, and it was an emotional roller-coaster for me, to finally understand the whole process of what my birth mother went through, and my adoptive mother too. I still have unanswered questions, that will never be answered.
This book makes for emotional reading. I mean, it is difficult to adopt a child at anytime, but Jackie Kay is emphasising how difficult it was in the 1960's. Her writing is thorough, and deals with a subject so poignantly, that isn't often thought of by most.
I also like the bonus poems on being Scottish, sexuality and the working class.
I was adopted at a few months old, and it was an emotional roller-coaster for me, to finally understand the whole process of what my birth mother went through, and my adoptive mother too. I still have unanswered questions, that will never be answered.
This book makes for emotional reading. I mean, it is difficult to adopt a child at anytime, but Jackie Kay is emphasising how difficult it was in the 1960's. Her writing is thorough, and deals with a subject so poignantly, that isn't often thought of by most.
I also like the bonus poems on being Scottish, sexuality and the working class.
November 25, 2022
A number of years ago, I read Jackie Kay’s memoir Red Dust Road: An Autobiographical Journey and was interested to learn about her search for her birth parents. So, it was nice to come across this slim 1991 poetry collection at a used bookstore recently.
The first, more cohesive half consists of a series of poems in three voices - biracial daughter (“One dream cuts another open like a gutted fish/ nothing is what it was;/ she is too many imaginings to be flesh and blood”), birth mother (“The rhythm of the train carries me/ over the frigid earth/ the constant chug a comforter/ a rocking cradle”), adoptive mother (unable to find an agency from which to adopt, “Just as we were going out the door/ I said oh you know we don’t mind the colour./ Just like that, the waiting was over.”). Each voice is in a distinct typeface, telling the story from an initial adoption through to the daughter seeking out her birth mother as an adult. It quite closely reflects Kay’s own situation as a biracial Scottish adoptee, and I found it vivid, sometimes funny, and moving.
The second half of the collection doesn’t seem to particularly relate to the first, and consists of poems written in a variety of different voices. I was less engaged with these, but the final one, “The Underground Baby Case,” was very good - it felt both ripped from the headlines and fairy-tale-like, narrated by a woman who takes home and keeps a baby inadvertently left on a train.
The first, more cohesive half consists of a series of poems in three voices - biracial daughter (“One dream cuts another open like a gutted fish/ nothing is what it was;/ she is too many imaginings to be flesh and blood”), birth mother (“The rhythm of the train carries me/ over the frigid earth/ the constant chug a comforter/ a rocking cradle”), adoptive mother (unable to find an agency from which to adopt, “Just as we were going out the door/ I said oh you know we don’t mind the colour./ Just like that, the waiting was over.”). Each voice is in a distinct typeface, telling the story from an initial adoption through to the daughter seeking out her birth mother as an adult. It quite closely reflects Kay’s own situation as a biracial Scottish adoptee, and I found it vivid, sometimes funny, and moving.
The second half of the collection doesn’t seem to particularly relate to the first, and consists of poems written in a variety of different voices. I was less engaged with these, but the final one, “The Underground Baby Case,” was very good - it felt both ripped from the headlines and fairy-tale-like, narrated by a woman who takes home and keeps a baby inadvertently left on a train.
January 4, 2014
I love Jackie Kay's style of taking different perspectives and interweaving them. The first half of this book, The Adoption Papers, is thought-provoking and uncomfortable. The adoptive mother's perspective is the strongest for me, the most fleshed out, but perhaps I only feel that as a white woman who'd like to adopt! Or perhaps it's because she has power over the other two voices, or because Kay is drawing on her intimate, nuanced knowing of her mother. The two other voices are more about body-sense and emotion is signified more viscerally. This could be a really subtle way to suggest the physical distance of the adoptive mother.
The second part Severe Gale 8 now seems to cohere as a personal and political commentary of British life in the 1980s. Kay again moves through the perspectives of different narrators, a little like Carol Ann Duffy in The World's Wife, but while Duffy seems to deal with fully formed, exaggerated literary personae for a multicoloured, larger than life effect, Kay's narrators only partly reveal themselves; they are more outward-looking, yet Kay positions them carefully, delineating the structures of power and identity around them. There is much great telling here. The last poem about stealing a baby in particular takes a nuanced, empathetic approach
The second part Severe Gale 8 now seems to cohere as a personal and political commentary of British life in the 1980s. Kay again moves through the perspectives of different narrators, a little like Carol Ann Duffy in The World's Wife, but while Duffy seems to deal with fully formed, exaggerated literary personae for a multicoloured, larger than life effect, Kay's narrators only partly reveal themselves; they are more outward-looking, yet Kay positions them carefully, delineating the structures of power and identity around them. There is much great telling here. The last poem about stealing a baby in particular takes a nuanced, empathetic approach
July 26, 2013
Loved it, especially the first part of the collection that deals with the adoption, the poet's early years and the experience of racism. I would read it on the bus and my eyes would fill with tears I tried to hide. I think the device of having three voices (the self, the adoptive mother and the birth mother) worked really well -- a device frequently used in fiction but not so common in poetry.
February 2, 2023
i really recommend this! about 30 pages of it are ‘the adoption papers’ and then there are also additional poems! kay writes in such a beautiful way about such important topics that are so personal to her that it’s impossible to not empathise with her
4 stars because the extra poems weren’t as interesting & i wasn’t as invested
4 stars because the extra poems weren’t as interesting & i wasn’t as invested
May 27, 2022
I was teaching my class about Jackie Kay, when I realised I had never read a full collection of her work, only a couple of her poems. The Adoption Papers was heartfelt and beautifully written. Kay’s writing is smooth and fluid. There are three characters- Daughter, Adoptive Mother, and Birth Mother- my criticism is Birth Mother and Adopted Mother disappear in the second half of the book, and I would’ve preferred to keep their presence as the poetry was at its best when you had this juxtaposition in voices.
Read
October 26, 2017I have my parents who are not of the same tree/and you keep trying to make it matter,/the blood, the tie, the passing down/generations./We all have our contradictions, /the ones with the mother's nose/and father's eyes/have them;/the blood does not bind confusion, /yet I confess to my contradiction/I want to know my blood.
December 7, 2023
For a book that was only 64 pages, for me, it was incredibly difficult to read. Each of the characters, the daughter, the adoptive mother and birth mother had a different typeface. Every line on the page could be a different one. Having to keep rechecking who was speaking I felt that reading lost it's flow. Simply three parts, three stories would have had more impact.
February 5, 2024
Dad brought this back from Glasgow and I liked the realistic grittiness of this Scottish/Nigerian version of adoption, so unlike gushy American movies. Different fonts are used for the 3 characters which works well. I’d like to hear the BBC radio play.
June 15, 2020
Porfi sí leanlo
October 20, 2023
this poetry was perfection.
June 8, 2025
Must read!!! Έχοντας μια ιδιαίτερη «σχέση» κ ευαισθησία στο θέμα της υιοθεσίας τολμώ να πω πως συγκινήθηκα.
December 12, 2023
Finding out Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy were together for 15 years was actually so 🤯
December 14, 2023
Jackie Kay writes from the heart - not only her own but also her mothers', her lover's, gay people, straight people, adults and children and gets their voices so so right. These poems are deceptively simple but contain gems of emotion, insight and sensitivity. One to read again and again.
August 18, 2019
Strong, po-faced verse portrait of her own birth and adoption, in three voices. Really lovely details throughout – her mother hiding all her Communist décor for first meeting the birth mother; Kay kissing her poster of Angela Davis goodnight, a traumatic, funny dismissal of the idea that your real mother has to be your birth mother
Meeting her bio-mum much later, Kay’s disillusionment is subtly and truly done: “the blood does not bind confusion” (mop it up, like carbon dioxide). It becomes apparent that Kay has just created the birth mother character – her mouth filled with vivid Plathian violence and articulate confusion not born out by the real woman. If so, more the better.
See also ‘I try my absolute best’, a perfect snapshot of misguided C20th hippy despair at agrichemicals.
(“After mammy telt me she wisna my real mammy I wis scared to death she wis gonna melt…”).
Meeting her bio-mum much later, Kay’s disillusionment is subtly and truly done: “the blood does not bind confusion” (mop it up, like carbon dioxide). It becomes apparent that Kay has just created the birth mother character – her mouth filled with vivid Plathian violence and articulate confusion not born out by the real woman. If so, more the better.
See also ‘I try my absolute best’, a perfect snapshot of misguided C20th hippy despair at agrichemicals.
January 15, 2020
This book contains The Adoption Papers, followed by Severe Gale 8.
Jackie Kay is a black Scottish poet who was adopted by a white couple, and The Adoption Papers includes poems told from the perspectives of both her mothers, as well as from her own perspective as a child and young woman. It is a very moving collection and I enjoyed it a lot.
Well she says, you have an interesting home
She sees my eyebrows rise.
It's different, she qualified.
Hell and I've spent all morning
trying to look ordinary
- a lovely home for the baby.
The second half of the book contains poems about storms; meteorological, metaphysical and political. I enjoyed it almost as much as the first half.
The wind was revolutionary;
ducks and gulls and Canadian goose
levitated to catch flying pieces of bread.
Small children flew higher than hawks,
their fat little bodies buffeted by Galeforce 8
moving along at 95 mph.
Adults stood rooted
like the trees used to be,
their arms waving in the wind.
Jackie Kay is a black Scottish poet who was adopted by a white couple, and The Adoption Papers includes poems told from the perspectives of both her mothers, as well as from her own perspective as a child and young woman. It is a very moving collection and I enjoyed it a lot.
Well she says, you have an interesting home
She sees my eyebrows rise.
It's different, she qualified.
Hell and I've spent all morning
trying to look ordinary
- a lovely home for the baby.
The second half of the book contains poems about storms; meteorological, metaphysical and political. I enjoyed it almost as much as the first half.
The wind was revolutionary;
ducks and gulls and Canadian goose
levitated to catch flying pieces of bread.
Small children flew higher than hawks,
their fat little bodies buffeted by Galeforce 8
moving along at 95 mph.
Adults stood rooted
like the trees used to be,
their arms waving in the wind.
October 3, 2012
I liked this. The writing I didn't rate much in terms of poetry (but that's just me) but I liked the subject matter. It examines interracial adoption, with the conflicting feelings about the blood tie meaning nothing when family is family, and yet to know one's lineage and heritage. Very good all in all.
December 28, 2010
One of my favourite poets - this is her earliest collection which explores the intricacies of the relationships between mother, adoptive mother and adopted and birth child - some lovely writing about music and its importance in black culture.
October 21, 2018
I really enjoyed reading this but halfway through the book I couldn't follow the narrative of the poems to definitely say which character was which.
There were some truly powerful moments on the subject of adoption, particularly the voice of the mother who gave her child away.
There were some truly powerful moments on the subject of adoption, particularly the voice of the mother who gave her child away.
August 9, 2022
Couldn’t follow the style of this book at all. Couldn’t follow what was happening at all, have no real clue what it was about apart from a couple of themes around racism and mixed heritage families. Only finished it because it was so short.
March 13, 2012
Defied my idea of poems. A great picture of a world I didn't think too much about. Love to see it live.
July 1, 2012
Fab, great insight into the struggle concerned with identity, acceptance and abandonment.
September 22, 2014
want to read
July 16, 2024
For this to be written in the 90s it reads so current. This might be my personal bias because I’m not well read in poetry but it’s so rare I find accessible poetry (for me) and it makes me feel included. This is what I like to read.
Also about to become obsessed with Jackie Kay, can’t believe she’s from Glasgow and voted national poet and I didn’t know of her 😓. She was adopted by a white Scottish couple in the 60s, their communist politics were very present in the poem which I loved. Also she’s a lesbian and dating another poet (unrelated but makes me very happy)
The poem is told in 3 voices from 3 women herself, her birth mother and her adoptive mother. It’s such a beautiful concept and again so impressed this book is older than me and the politics are so current.
Not sure if it was just my volume but the font indicators for the birth mother and adoptive mother are reversed so it took me a while to find my feet while checking back and forth. I appreciated the beginning note to indicate a font for each voice. For my experience with poetry I was already afraid I won’t be able to distinguish between the voices but Jackie Kay made it super accessible.
I admit some of the further poems (I imagine for various people in Kay’s life) some I didn’t understand maybe because I was a bit panicking that I no longer understood who is talking and was afraid it will get inaccessible. I’ll give it a second go. Otherwise I think I might need to read her memoir to get more lore of her life which I’m pretty happy to do.
If I was young looking into universities again I imagine this is the kind of book that would make me consider studying literature and poetry.
Also this was her debite book, impossible standards!
Also about to become obsessed with Jackie Kay, can’t believe she’s from Glasgow and voted national poet and I didn’t know of her 😓. She was adopted by a white Scottish couple in the 60s, their communist politics were very present in the poem which I loved. Also she’s a lesbian and dating another poet (unrelated but makes me very happy)
The poem is told in 3 voices from 3 women herself, her birth mother and her adoptive mother. It’s such a beautiful concept and again so impressed this book is older than me and the politics are so current.
Not sure if it was just my volume but the font indicators for the birth mother and adoptive mother are reversed so it took me a while to find my feet while checking back and forth. I appreciated the beginning note to indicate a font for each voice. For my experience with poetry I was already afraid I won’t be able to distinguish between the voices but Jackie Kay made it super accessible.
I admit some of the further poems (I imagine for various people in Kay’s life) some I didn’t understand maybe because I was a bit panicking that I no longer understood who is talking and was afraid it will get inaccessible. I’ll give it a second go. Otherwise I think I might need to read her memoir to get more lore of her life which I’m pretty happy to do.
If I was young looking into universities again I imagine this is the kind of book that would make me consider studying literature and poetry.
Also this was her debite book, impossible standards!
July 16, 2024
This was Jackie Kay's first collection of poems, published in 1991. Although the first half of the book 'The Adoption Papers' sequence was first performed as a dramatization on Radio 3 in 1990. Having looked Kay up on the internet, i.e. looked at Wikipedia I realised that a lot of the poems - although not all - are autobiographical.
Once again despite having read a lot of poetry I struggle to put my thoughts into words, which is ironic. I remember a quote from Ta-Nehisi Coates - which thankfully I wrote down: "Poetry aims for an economy of truth - loose and useless words were not separate from loose and useless thoughts. Poetry was not simply the transcription of notions...beautiful writing rarely is." And on that measure Kay's poetry is excellent. But again I struggle to explain why.
I fear that my reading speed is a hindrance with poetry, like my speed around museums and galleries is a hindrance to my appreciation of art. I am flying by distracted by the most obvious or most beautiful. Ignoring the craft and getting caught by the colour. Perhaps this is something that needs to change.
This collection is enough to make me want to read more of Kay's work and to see that there is good poetry going on. Anything more than that I leave to the academics and the critics.
Once again despite having read a lot of poetry I struggle to put my thoughts into words, which is ironic. I remember a quote from Ta-Nehisi Coates - which thankfully I wrote down: "Poetry aims for an economy of truth - loose and useless words were not separate from loose and useless thoughts. Poetry was not simply the transcription of notions...beautiful writing rarely is." And on that measure Kay's poetry is excellent. But again I struggle to explain why.
I fear that my reading speed is a hindrance with poetry, like my speed around museums and galleries is a hindrance to my appreciation of art. I am flying by distracted by the most obvious or most beautiful. Ignoring the craft and getting caught by the colour. Perhaps this is something that needs to change.
This collection is enough to make me want to read more of Kay's work and to see that there is good poetry going on. Anything more than that I leave to the academics and the critics.
March 26, 2018
Jackie Kay's The Adoption Papers is a collection of poems which explore adoption, using three perspectives - those of the child, the biological mother, and the adoptive mother. This is an admirable concept, but one which I feel did not quite offer the depth of emotion which it could have done. This is the second of Kay's poetry collections which I have read, and the second which I have been disappointed with. Whilst I liked the core idea here, the poems were not really to my taste, and some of them even seemed twee and predictable. I might try one of Kay's novels in future, but I am now pretty sure that I am not a big fan of her poetic output.
October 26, 2019
A book of two halves. The first part deals with the story of two white mothers and a black child. The voices of each character speak from their perspective on the tale of a mother putting a child up for adoption, another taking her into her care, and the child herself - the poet, finding herself. Beautifully done its a story Jackie Kay has come back to with her "Red Dust Road" autobiography, and the play that followed it. The second half of the book is again in several voices, poems often about love and sexuality feels a bit like a separate book.
March 22, 2025
I do love poetry and I would like to read more books like this.
I also enjoy this style of writing where it is in the vernacular of the reader. The different fonts were also interesting. Unfortunately, I was vastly confused between the different perspectives. I could almost swear the adoptive mother and birth mother were switched. I don't understand entirely what happened but I get the gist of it.
This was written in the 90s during the Troubles, I believe, and the AID crisis.
Overall, it is a dive into racism, adoption, and homosexuality.
I also enjoy this style of writing where it is in the vernacular of the reader. The different fonts were also interesting. Unfortunately, I was vastly confused between the different perspectives. I could almost swear the adoptive mother and birth mother were switched. I don't understand entirely what happened but I get the gist of it.
This was written in the 90s during the Troubles, I believe, and the AID crisis.
Overall, it is a dive into racism, adoption, and homosexuality.
February 6, 2019
This was the December book group read.
This is a story, in poetry form, about the process of adoption told by the mother, the birth mother and the daughter.
Despite the fact that the text was changed to indicate who was speaking I still got confused. In the end I got the audio version and listened to it, this was a much better experience.
It is a beautiful piece of writing and I really appreciated hearing about the same process from all parties.
This is a story, in poetry form, about the process of adoption told by the mother, the birth mother and the daughter.
Despite the fact that the text was changed to indicate who was speaking I still got confused. In the end I got the audio version and listened to it, this was a much better experience.
It is a beautiful piece of writing and I really appreciated hearing about the same process from all parties.
March 18, 2023
Really rather brilliant. Especially the first half about Kay's adoption, her growing up in auld Scotland, her search for her roots, all of it is done with great skill and soul.
Second half, a collection of autobio-semiautobiog poems ain't bad either! Favourites in there were "My Grandmother's Houses", "Summer Storm, Capolona", and the very witty "I try my absolute best". Her poll tax riot poems are maybe the first I've seen in poetry (or even in lit) so thanks for that too, JK.
Second half, a collection of autobio-semiautobiog poems ain't bad either! Favourites in there were "My Grandmother's Houses", "Summer Storm, Capolona", and the very witty "I try my absolute best". Her poll tax riot poems are maybe the first I've seen in poetry (or even in lit) so thanks for that too, JK.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews