“Grafted Tree” Book Launch

A DNA test in 2018 revealed some shocking family news—my biological father was NOT the man who raised me. As I processed this information, I wrote poems about family connections. Then I realized that as an adoptive parent, my sense of family is much broader than DNA connection. Grafted Tree emerged from these experiences.

Come to my book launch, grab a meal, a snack or a coffee and take a look I’ll be doing two brief readings during this event. PS – I will have some  art, notecards & a few photos there too!.

Some responses to Grafted Tree:

Grafted Tree is a book about transformation, memory and love. Judith Prest takes us through her deep understanding of adoption, marriage and identity as a wife, mother and what it means to be a sister to new found brothers. There is a longing for wholeness, for cure, for the compassion it takes to heal not only herself, but the world. And she succeeds in bringing these poems to fruition not only for herself, but for us as well.

~  June Gould, Ph.D.

Judith Prest’s luminous book about families opens quite simply: Wherever I go/I bring a crowd along.  Grafted Tree follows the treasure map of her rich experience in only the way this gifted poet can do. The reader takes us on a journey with her through the well-remembered stories of her life and newly unveiled secrets she has recently discovered.  Written by a poet at her peak, Grafted Tree above all will resonate as a love letter to all kinds of family experience, written with understanding, compassion, and truth. As she writes in the book’s concluding poem, “I carry their history; /it has shaped mine/ My breath, my spirit/a bridge where/ they stand now/They wave to me/through the mist.  “                              

 ~  Jan Marin Tramontano

Judith Prest brilliantly maps her poetic genealogy in her third book, Grafted Tree: Family Poems.  Her writing

offers familial depth in a diverse selection of form and emotion as she explores each surprising and glorious

branch of grafted tree.

~ Suzanne S. Rancourt