Foster care is a complex experience, filled with a range of emotions – loss, uncertainty, resilience, and sometimes, hope. For those who have lived through it, poetry can offer a powerful means of expression, healing, and understanding. Finding the right words to articulate such profound experiences can be challenging, but poetry, with its unique ability to delve into the emotional landscape, provides a unique outlet. Whether written by those within the system or those observing its impact, Foster Care Poems offer glimpses into the hearts and minds touched by this often-overlooked reality.
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The Power of Poetry in Processing Trauma
The experience of foster care often involves navigating trauma. The separation from biological families, the uncertainty of temporary placements, and the constant adjustments can leave deep emotional scars. For many, the immediate focus is simply survival. It’s only later, with distance and reflection, that the full weight of these experiences truly hits. Poetry, in its raw and honest form, can help process these complex feelings. It allows for the exploration of difficult emotions in a safe space, offering a path towards healing and self-discovery.
Exploring Foster Care Through Different Poetic Lenses
Poetry about foster care takes many forms. Some poems are deeply personal accounts of lived experiences within the system. Others are written from the perspectives of foster parents, social workers, or those observing the system from the outside. Each perspective offers valuable insights and contributes to a broader understanding of the foster care landscape.
Lemn Sissay: A Voice of Resilience
Lemn Sissay, a renowned poet and memoirist who experienced foster care, powerfully articulates the longing for connection and belonging. While not explicitly about foster care, his poem “Invisible Kisses” resonates deeply with the sense of displacement many foster youth feel. The poem speaks to the universal human need for support and understanding, a need often amplified for those within the foster care system. His memoir, My Name Is Why, offers further insight into his experiences.
…there was ever one
Who can offer you this and more;
Who in keyless rooms
Can open doors;
Who in open doors
Can see open fields
And in open fields
See harvests yield….
Terry Wolverton: Capturing the Transient Nature of Foster Care
Terry Wolverton, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, poignantly captures the transient nature of foster care in her poem “Foster Care.” The simple act of hiding a shirt to preserve the “smell of home” speaks volumes about the desire for stability and a sense of belonging amidst constant change. The poem’s imagery evokes the fragility of memories and the struggle to maintain a connection to the past in the face of an uncertain future.
…Each time we come to a new place
I try to hide one shirt
beneath the mattress
just to keep the smell of home.
Sometimes they find it,
squeeze it through the wringer;
hid long enough, the cloth absorbs
the air around it, loses its memories…
Cristi Donoso Best: Exploring Grief and Letting Go
Cristi Donoso Best offers a different perspective in her poem featured in Entropy Magazine’s foster care series. This poem explores the grief experienced by foster parents as a child moves on. It acknowledges the impact of foster care on all involved, highlighting the complex emotions that arise from temporary connections and the bittersweet nature of letting go.
how does a person so small leave
so many things behind
a crib full of air, the nibbled books
days grow long here
among your tiny, linted socks
the sound of you not calling and your name—we are learning
what our hands are for
we wait to hear of you
to know, what our love has fostered
whether
it is better for you to remember us
or to forget
The Continued Search for Voice and Understanding
These poems, and many others like them, offer a vital window into the foster care experience. They remind us of the importance of empathy, understanding, and support for those navigating this complex system. Poetry becomes a powerful tool not only for individual healing but also for raising awareness and fostering dialogue about this often-silent struggle. The search for voice, connection, and a sense of belonging continues, and poetry provides a powerful medium for that journey.