Collage of Seoul

"What once was lost is found, lost, and found again in the prismatic Collage of Seoul, a journey to the complicated heart of adoption, identity, family, and faith. These ardent lyrics and narratives ring to the slightest touch, reverberating the sojourner's ache for beauty and meaning. 'Perhaps,' Newman writes, 'there was a second garden in Eden.' I believe these poems were germinated there."

--Tania Runyan, author of Second Sky



"Newman's provocative and sweeping poems contain the insatiable hungers of knowing and being. Full of lush living images and adroit language, the pieces of his Collage of Seoul traverse the terra incognita of the poet's evolving identity, fleshing out lines that speak deeply from ceaseless awes and grand concerns, both personal and political. . . . Plain and simple, this debut is a stunner."

--Dave Harrity, author of Making Manifest



"Collage of Seoul tells a story riddled by the discontinuities of adoption. In it, Jae Newman invites us into his world--one where shadow is shelter and spine the ground of being; where a broken heart is broken open; and love's inexplicable alchemy transmutes radical doubt into a provisional faith."

--Debra Kang Dean, author of Back to Back