In her debut collection, Tiana Nobile grapples with the history of transnational adoption, both her own from South Korea and the broader, collective experience. In conversation with psychologist Harry Harlow's monkey experiments and utilizing fragments of a highly personal cache of documents from her own adoption, these poems explore dislocation, familial relationships, and the science of love and attachment. A Rona Jaffe Foundation award winner, Nobile is a glimmering new talent. Cleave attempts to unknot the complexities of adoptee childhood, revealing a nature of opposites-"the child cleaved to her mother / the child cleaved from her mother"-while reckoning with the histories that make us. Abstract Foster Mother The first time I belonged to a woman, my body a fresh bulb broken off at the root. She kept me for six months, watched spit bubble from my pursed lips. I wonder if she ever claimed me, if she rocked me to sleep on her chest, if she wiped my mouth gently saying, There you go, there you are.

Buzz and Accolades for Cleave A Rumpus Most Anticipated Book of 2021 Poetry Daily feature Author tour, including reading series, book festivals, and workshops across the South National review outreach Outreach to adoptee groups, college level courses for course adoption Indie bookseller campaign Social media outreach

About the Author
Tiana Nobile is the author of Cleave (Hub City Press, 2021). She is a Korean American adoptee, Kundiman fellow, and recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. A finalist of the National Poetry Series and Kundiman Poetry Prize, her writing has appeared in Poetry Northwest, The New Republic, Guernica, and the Texas Review, among others. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. For more, visit www.tiananobile.com.

Reviews
"Tiana Nobile has created that rare gift: a collection of poems that not only springs from experiential knowledge but also offers insight on and says something new about the America in which we're currently living. Cleave is a stunning debut that will help us, 'carry ourselves into the realms of light,' which we find ourselves searching for as we navigate our lives in the most challenging of times. Between the vulnerability in these poems and the music of their lines, Nobile proves a master at using her history and ours to make a better world for today. And love in every form-that which we cling to, and that which we separate from-resonates throughout." -A. Van Jordan, author of Cineaste "I have been waiting with such anticipation for Tiana Nobile's remarkable first book, Cleave, to make its way into the world. It is, to my mind, one of the most powerful examples of how poetry can cut to the heart of how a country's vision of itself can wreak unimaginable harm on the lives and bodies of the people it purports to protect, value, and represent. With breathtaking lyric beauty and formidable formal range, Nobile details the intimate effects of the international adoption industrial complex on children and parents caught up in a system's unrelenting hunger. This is a book of remarkable compassion and real horror. Its stories will be news to many and all too familiar to others. I cannot look away from these poems. We cannot look away from these poems." -Gabrielle Calvocoressi, author of Rocket Fantastic "In Tiana Nobile's wonderful Cleave, the condition of the Korean-American adoptee is that of a wandering orbitless moon. The speaker fills the absence of her birth mother with aching questions of home, motherhood, and selfhood. Using the scant documentation she has with her deeply felt imagination, Nobile obsessively revisits the mystery of her birth until she creates her own mythic origin story that is beautiful, melancholic and powerful. Tiana Nobile is a bright new talent." -Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning



Book Information
ISBN 9781938235757
Author Nobile
Format Paperback
Page Count 72
Imprint Hub City Press
Publisher Hub City Press