The Fight

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Winner of the 2022 Trio Award and a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry the Eric Hoffer Award and the Eric Hoffer First Horizon Award Jennifer Manthey's </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>The Fight</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> showcases Manthey's experience with adoption alongside the actions of Varina Davis history's only First Lady of the Confederate States to present readers with the complexity of adoption especially in the case of white mothers with Black children. Her poetry is intimate tender and full of potency navigating truth...difficult as history revealing the Hate hidden everywhere and asking readers to question what it means to be white in a country not built to love [her] son. Manthey's power lies in her ability to speak to her readers' hearts while challenging their understanding of ongoing racial inequity. </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>The Fight</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> captures the wealth of collective guilt and discomfort many white Americans are currently wrestling with the impact that adoption has on the family as a whole and the ongoing effects of white saviorism in American society. </span></p>