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Threadbare: A Patchwork of Poems That Make A Life
Love, loss, grief, and growth are knit together in this uniquely moving collection from Adanna Moriarty. Feel a life flash before you as we follow Adanna on the path of her own – from childhood wonder to young adult freedoms, to budding motherhood and the tragic loss of a parent. Woven with a love only loss could know, each piece brings a nostalgic comfort, causing the reader to ponder the threads of their own life. Moriarty thoughtfully narrates her shift in child to woman and examines the hardest of topics in an honest and gentle way. In doing so, her story is not only relatable but also softens the things we find most difficult to discuss – mental health, adapting to change, and the quiet tragedy of death. This is a collection readers will return to again and gain for comfort, for validation, and for the nostalgia of a life well lived.Adanna Moriarty weaves a memoir of poetry by exploring each stage of life and the interlocking fabric of community and family that shapes a person.
From a childhood in the 1980s to adulthood in the 2000s, she drives through her memories and reflects on the loss of her father and the person she has become. She finds love and hope for humanity by exploring both her inner and outer worlds through self-reflection and world observation.
Each section is laced with vivid imagery and nature as The youngest child's loneliness in the fields of upstate New York. The teenage runaway in the gritty, hot, unforgiving climate of 1990s Phoenix, AZ. The young mother coming to terms with the fact that her children are starting to move out and become adults themselves. The pandemic, the loss of a parent, the aftermath.
A storyteller from childhood, Moriarty has woven poems into a memoir - a journey uniquely her own, yet relatable to her readers.
From a childhood in the 1980s to adulthood in the 2000s, she drives through her memories and reflects on the loss of her father and the person she has become. She finds love and hope for humanity by exploring both her inner and outer worlds through self-reflection and world observation.
Each section is laced with vivid imagery and nature as The youngest child's loneliness in the fields of upstate New York. The teenage runaway in the gritty, hot, unforgiving climate of 1990s Phoenix, AZ. The young mother coming to terms with the fact that her children are starting to move out and become adults themselves. The pandemic, the loss of a parent, the aftermath.
A storyteller from childhood, Moriarty has woven poems into a memoir - a journey uniquely her own, yet relatable to her readers.
- GenresPoetry
142 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 15, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 15, 2022
An enjoyable journey through a life
This is an excellent collection of very well written poems that also serves as a kind of autobiography of the author. It’s a great concept that is executed well, with photos and illustrations adding a nice personal touch throughout. I found the author’s experiences to be very relatable and enjoyed this journey through her life.
This is an excellent collection of very well written poems that also serves as a kind of autobiography of the author. It’s a great concept that is executed well, with photos and illustrations adding a nice personal touch throughout. I found the author’s experiences to be very relatable and enjoyed this journey through her life.
January 23, 2022
Threadbare is the debut poetry book of the author Adanna Moriarty.
In this poetry book, Adanna takes readers to different stages of her life. She is inspiring others to rise from the dark and brighten the world around them. Below lines are my favorite from the poem "Forever in the mist":
I am the dreamer.
The achiever.
The observer.
The outsider.
The non-conformist / Who must conform.
The believer.
The unbalanced / Who balances others.
I am the savior.
The healer / The advice giver.
Outside looking in.
Apart even when together.
Behind even when forward.
This poetry book takes readers on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. I love reading poems that have been woven into a memoir. I am grateful to Adanna for giving us a chance to sneak peak into her inner and outer world.
Writing style of the author is nice. Language used in the poems is easy to understand. Even if you are not an avid poetry reader, you would be able to understand these poems easily. Cover photo of the book is nice. I enjoyed reading this collection. Like to recommend it to poetry lovers.
In this poetry book, Adanna takes readers to different stages of her life. She is inspiring others to rise from the dark and brighten the world around them. Below lines are my favorite from the poem "Forever in the mist":
I am the dreamer.
The achiever.
The observer.
The outsider.
The non-conformist / Who must conform.
The believer.
The unbalanced / Who balances others.
I am the savior.
The healer / The advice giver.
Outside looking in.
Apart even when together.
Behind even when forward.
This poetry book takes readers on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. I love reading poems that have been woven into a memoir. I am grateful to Adanna for giving us a chance to sneak peak into her inner and outer world.
Writing style of the author is nice. Language used in the poems is easy to understand. Even if you are not an avid poetry reader, you would be able to understand these poems easily. Cover photo of the book is nice. I enjoyed reading this collection. Like to recommend it to poetry lovers.
July 19, 2023
“I am here to tell a story,” Moriarty’s incipit reads. Indeed, the story is told, not only through her collection of poems, but with personal photographs from her life weaved together to form this “Patchwork” book.
Written almost entirely in first person, the collection reads like a memoir, taking the reader on a journey from red, curly-haired child, to angsty runaway, to multipotentialite adult who seems to have lived countless lives in her 40 some-odd years.
Her poem, “Drowned,” in the first section of her collection, serves as a sort of foreshadowing to the rest of the collection.
I saved myself
not when I drowned
the first time
when I was five…
But when I drowned again
I was twelve
I swam
gulped
grasped at each
particle of air…
my face breaking the plane of one
world to the other
in those first, small
purposeful
still and quiet breaths
I saved myself.
The passage left me wondering in what other ways would the poet save herself or define herself in survival.
“Forever in the mist” carries this energy, recognizing like so many of us do, that identity is complex, dialectic.
Outside looking in.
Apart even when together.
Behind even when forward.
I am the misunderstood.
The one in the mist.
The loner.
The soul griever.
The observer.
The achiever.
The believer / The dreamer.
Even more, in “Life blooms from the desert” Moriarty continues to assert that even in harsh conditions, survival is not only possible, it’s inevitable.
An inhospitable landscape…
Teaching me,
life can come from drought.
Life can be warm,
and full,
even where no life should dwell.
In “All that I was,” an ode, or at least, a dedication to her daughter, Moriarty links the survival she has experienced to the blessing of becoming a mother, finding a sense of purpose from the hardships she experienced.
All that I was became you
my roots becoming your branches
a perch to allow observation
of the world
marking it in chalks and ink
a paint that only you can see
We see this transcendence again in “The Fabric that Makes Me.” Moriarty starts the poem with “Everything of me / is threadbare” but ends with:
The threadbare of me
takes the fray
and weaves [the fabrics] together.
For knowledge, and sorrow
melancholy and scar become
the patchwork of a rebuilt
foundation,
that supports the new me
cocooned in the woods
where the threadbare fabric becomes
integral, and the trees can
protect it.
Even in the midst of grief, the section simply titled “Dad,” where Moriarty writes of her relationship with her father who passed from Stage IV bladder cancer, Moriarty refuses to let her pain be meaningless. The excerpt from “I dare you, Earth” shows how her sadness becomes something bigger than she is.
I dare you, Earth,
To take me, raw, broken,
for my tears create your oceans.
In the simple couplet from “You died today,” she writes: “You died today
/ and we, go on…” and the reader understands that “we go on” not because the loss is meaningless but because there is no other choice but survival. Survival is not only possible, it’s inevitable. And, it just simply is.
“How to explain that unquenchable sadness” reverberates this sentiment.
[Grief]’s slippery and lonely,
and yet I’m still here,
all of it, at once.
In the final poem of the collection, “There have been many definitions of me,” Moriarty writes:
There have been many definitions of me
Daughter, Sister, Writer, Delinquent, Healer, Lover, Wife
Mother
Mother
And she asks, “WHO am I? / WHAT am I?”
The poem resolves with:
I’m reminded of
the beauty of the life
I built
the joy that comes after
the struggle
the laugh lines around
my eyes
That, even in the coldest months
this home feels like summer’s brightest breeze
but, mostly
I’m reminded of
who I’ve always been
who I’ll always be
Daughter, Sister, Writer, Delinquent, Healer, Lover, Wife, Poet
But I dare argue that one identity was left out of the list. This collection is not just a patchwork of poems, it’s a survival guide, and this daughter/sister/writer/delinquent/healer/lover/wife/poet is also, first and foremost, in my opinion, a survivor.
Written almost entirely in first person, the collection reads like a memoir, taking the reader on a journey from red, curly-haired child, to angsty runaway, to multipotentialite adult who seems to have lived countless lives in her 40 some-odd years.
Her poem, “Drowned,” in the first section of her collection, serves as a sort of foreshadowing to the rest of the collection.
I saved myself
not when I drowned
the first time
when I was five…
But when I drowned again
I was twelve
I swam
gulped
grasped at each
particle of air…
my face breaking the plane of one
world to the other
in those first, small
purposeful
still and quiet breaths
I saved myself.
The passage left me wondering in what other ways would the poet save herself or define herself in survival.
“Forever in the mist” carries this energy, recognizing like so many of us do, that identity is complex, dialectic.
Outside looking in.
Apart even when together.
Behind even when forward.
I am the misunderstood.
The one in the mist.
The loner.
The soul griever.
The observer.
The achiever.
The believer / The dreamer.
Even more, in “Life blooms from the desert” Moriarty continues to assert that even in harsh conditions, survival is not only possible, it’s inevitable.
An inhospitable landscape…
Teaching me,
life can come from drought.
Life can be warm,
and full,
even where no life should dwell.
In “All that I was,” an ode, or at least, a dedication to her daughter, Moriarty links the survival she has experienced to the blessing of becoming a mother, finding a sense of purpose from the hardships she experienced.
All that I was became you
my roots becoming your branches
a perch to allow observation
of the world
marking it in chalks and ink
a paint that only you can see
We see this transcendence again in “The Fabric that Makes Me.” Moriarty starts the poem with “Everything of me / is threadbare” but ends with:
The threadbare of me
takes the fray
and weaves [the fabrics] together.
For knowledge, and sorrow
melancholy and scar become
the patchwork of a rebuilt
foundation,
that supports the new me
cocooned in the woods
where the threadbare fabric becomes
integral, and the trees can
protect it.
Even in the midst of grief, the section simply titled “Dad,” where Moriarty writes of her relationship with her father who passed from Stage IV bladder cancer, Moriarty refuses to let her pain be meaningless. The excerpt from “I dare you, Earth” shows how her sadness becomes something bigger than she is.
I dare you, Earth,
To take me, raw, broken,
for my tears create your oceans.
In the simple couplet from “You died today,” she writes: “You died today
/ and we, go on…” and the reader understands that “we go on” not because the loss is meaningless but because there is no other choice but survival. Survival is not only possible, it’s inevitable. And, it just simply is.
“How to explain that unquenchable sadness” reverberates this sentiment.
[Grief]’s slippery and lonely,
and yet I’m still here,
all of it, at once.
In the final poem of the collection, “There have been many definitions of me,” Moriarty writes:
There have been many definitions of me
Daughter, Sister, Writer, Delinquent, Healer, Lover, Wife
Mother
Mother
And she asks, “WHO am I? / WHAT am I?”
The poem resolves with:
I’m reminded of
the beauty of the life
I built
the joy that comes after
the struggle
the laugh lines around
my eyes
That, even in the coldest months
this home feels like summer’s brightest breeze
but, mostly
I’m reminded of
who I’ve always been
who I’ll always be
Daughter, Sister, Writer, Delinquent, Healer, Lover, Wife, Poet
But I dare argue that one identity was left out of the list. This collection is not just a patchwork of poems, it’s a survival guide, and this daughter/sister/writer/delinquent/healer/lover/wife/poet is also, first and foremost, in my opinion, a survivor.
March 19, 2022
Adanna Moritarty's Threadbare captures itself as a time capsule of the speaker. It is intimate, vulnerable, and delicate in such ways where the poetry speaks, shows, and does not tell itself. The personal touch of the photos to the the various illustrations will tug and thread at readers' heartstrings. The collection is a rare and unique privilege to read.
October 22, 2025
Such a beautiful book! It’s so well written and full of beautiful human emotions. Highly recommend!
October 22, 2025
This is such a beautiful and unique way to tell the story of a life’s journey.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews