When writer Patrick Hicks and his wife were unable to have biological children, they adopted a little boy from South Korea. In his new book of poetry, Adoptable, Hicks shares the joys of fatherhood and imagines his son as he grows older. The book’s poems also examine what it means to adopt a child from another country and culture. In one poem he asks the question, “Did we do the right thing, importing you to the other side of the world, bringing you to the prairie and the ice?”
Hicks is writer-in-residence at Augustana College in Sioux Falls. He’s the author of seven books, including his recent novel about the Holocaust, The Commandant of Lubizec. He discussed the poems about his son on Dakota Midday and said writing them provided some light in contrast to the darkness of the novel.
