Two of Everything: Poems

by Sally Keith

An abundant and anticipatory collection of poems exploring the season of waiting that precedes adoption.

From Guggenheim fellow and celebrated author Sally Keith comes an incantatory collection of poems on the transformative process of nurturing new life and the practical challenges of starting a family.

In Two of Everything, Keith depicts an evocative domestic landscape. An oriole weaves a nest of “straw, wool, horsehair, and feather” while hopeful parents meet with social workers, compile family videos, write, sketch. Intertwined with these scenes is a candid navigation of the US adoption industry and the unique obstacles faced by queer couples. “I want Amor to promise me that everything will be alright,” says the speaker-poet. “But she won’t.” Interviews don’t go as expected, mothers withdraw from adoption conversations, “the bees are dying again.” Torn by feelings of shame for participating in a system that commodifies children, Keith’s speaker-poet finds herself caught between longing and dismay, wondering if and how poetry can carry us through such moments—and through the mysteries of existence.

But despite their difficult subject matter, these resilient poems sing with love. Singularly thoughtful and characterized by Keith’s lush lyricism, this collection demonstrates the tenacity and tenderness needed to build “harbor, shelter, home, house” against all odds.

Genres: Poetry

110 pages, Paperback

Published August 6, 2024

Reviews

[Mya Matteo]

A really emotional one-sitting poetry memoir about a lesbian couple wanting to be parents. I'm still chewing on this one, but as of right now I don't love how the reveal works toward the end, and the neat sort of narrative that it's aiming to create.

But I'm bringing a lot of my own baggage to it as a fellow queer, prospective adoptive parent so.

[Ada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poema llarg sobre un tema molt concret: una parella de lesbianes a l'espera d'adoptar una criatura.
L'he gaudit i m'agraden molts dels recursos que utilitza: referències a altres obres, repetició de paraules i fragments...etc.
Però en general gaudeixo menys dels poemaris que se centren tant en un tema concret.

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

In poetry, there is this mythos involved with writing in a notebook. A kind of ethos that’s like the best version of the writer everyone wants to see themselves as on the page. An idea that whatever writing might occupy the most personal part of ourselves, it is, by its nature, poetry. Which isn’t to say that everything written in a notebook is poem-like. More that the space writing creates in a notebook, the feeling of writing in a notebook, that honest, intimate engagement, it feels like the best version of the poem you hope you’ll write. Like if the poem is the performance, writing in a notebook is like the conditioning, and all the best and worst moments implied by that. Like the whole concept of mimesis could be “whenever I write in a notebook.” Or even more pointedly, every time a poet is asked, “What kind of poetry do you write?” They could easily reply by saying, “I write poems that feel like you’re writing in a notebook.”

And so there’s a risk to Sally Keith’s Two of Everything. Namely, how it conspicuously occupies this trope of notebook-as-poetry. Like I would contrast Keith’s use of the trope with Brian Teare’s Poem Bitten By a Man—a book invested in the notebook trope, even calling it out at times. But the depth of the book’s investment in the notebook as a writing fixture is saved until Teare’s Notes at the end. Sorry if this is a spoiler, but it turns out all of Teare’s language is lifted directly from his and other people’s notebooks! Whoa! The line between Keith’s notebooks and her poems-as-mindful-of-her-notebooks is more tender. It’s more a gestural inclusion. Like she’s “thrifting” (a comparison she makes a couple times) through her notebooks.

Or what might be more illustrative revolves around the book’s recurring mention of night. Writing in a notebook can feel like night shrouding you, a cone of night hovering over the poet, restricting her view to the immediate surroundings, and emphasizing the precarity of just living in the present. Like that Magritte painting with a lamppost, where the darkness around the lamp feels exaggeratedly present. The poems put me in mind of perception as a radius around the poet. Within the radius there exists the pleasure of discursive thought, sensations and reality synthesized into meaningful insight. And outside the radius is what you can’t control. Seeking to adopt a child. Understanding domestic bliss. Being a juror in the legal process. Feeling the potential that can attend a poetic project. But maybe the project never advances far enough past its potential stage.

It’s an interesting contrast to her previous book, River House: Poems, which felt like a voice that couldn’t quit talking. The style of these poems feels like that voice’s intermittent appearance. But not like the voice appears out of the night. Rather, when seated in a dark place, left to your own devices, this is the voice that keeps you company.

[Elizabeth G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sally Keith's Two of Everything is a profound exploration of the adoption journey, rendered with the lush lyricism we expect from a Guggenheim Fellow. These poems navigate the season of waiting: social worker visits, family videos, the ache of interviews gone wrong, and the shame of participating in a system that commodifies children. Keith's speaker moves between hope and dismay with breathtaking honesty, asking whether poetry itself can carry us through such mysteries. The collection shines in its domestic details, an oriole weaving "straw, wool, horsehair, and feather" alongside the speaker's own nest building. While the elliptical style occasionally obscures emotional access, the cumulative effect is deeply moving. A singular, brave book for anyone who has ever waited for love to arrive through impossible channels.

[Paul Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two of Everything is a kind of memoir-in-poems of Keith and her partner going through the process of adoption. (The partner is called "Amor" in the book, which I don't think is her actual name, but talk about resonant....) This always delicate process is even more delicate for same-sex couples, so the book is full of frustrations, disappointed hopes, and dead ends. What a payoff, though--"December Light," the book's final section, is radiant with joy.

Word of mouth is bound to help this book; I can't imagine anyone reading it and not recommending it.

[Katelyn]

Keith's poetic memoir of waiting to become a mother via adoption can be read in one sitting.

[Carolyn]

I can't make head or tails out of these poems so I'm giving them back to the library.

[Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am probably going to reread this book and keep thinking about it for the rest of my life.