Uprooted Orchid by Sarah Joy Thompson

$17.00

Uprooted Orchid, touches on the power of words as medicine to navigate grief or illnesses that have disrupted home and family life. The speaker processes her father’s health complications from pulmonary disease and shortly after her own diagnosis – aggressive breast cancer. This collection of poetry is about feeling the emotional and physical weight of losing – a loved one, a breast – but also about celebrating family and “the magic in ordinary/ bits and fragments of everyday life”.

The poems serve as an ode to facing difficult journeys, “Dear Warrior, you are more than/ what happens to your body on the outside”, while acknowledging every obstacle in the climb away from the gray area of grief, “Even a crystal doesn’t do much in the dark/ until you hold her up to the beauty of day/ and watch her refract the light/ rainbow after rainbow”.

Sit with these manifestations of light during difficult times, when some wounds are slow to heal. Find the glimmer in post-surgery screening of the self or taking the last prescription pills in a regiment of medication. Step into the awakening that comes with simply cherishing every moment and the second chance of healing.


Uprooted Orchid, touches on the power of words as medicine to navigate grief or illnesses that have disrupted home and family life. The speaker processes her father’s health complications from pulmonary disease and shortly after her own diagnosis – aggressive breast cancer. This collection of poetry is about feeling the emotional and physical weight of losing – a loved one, a breast – but also about celebrating family and “the magic in ordinary/ bits and fragments of everyday life”.

The poems serve as an ode to facing difficult journeys, “Dear Warrior, you are more than/ what happens to your body on the outside”, while acknowledging every obstacle in the climb away from the gray area of grief, “Even a crystal doesn’t do much in the dark/ until you hold her up to the beauty of day/ and watch her refract the light/ rainbow after rainbow”.

Sit with these manifestations of light during difficult times, when some wounds are slow to heal. Find the glimmer in post-surgery screening of the self or taking the last prescription pills in a regiment of medication. Step into the awakening that comes with simply cherishing every moment and the second chance of healing.


Sarah Joy Thompson is a Filipina-American poet and the author of three poetry books, including a chapbook The Everyday, the Mundane, and the Brave (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and two full-length poetry collections Driving into Black Mountains (FlowerSong Press, 2020) and Uprooted Orchid (FlowerSong Press, 2025). In 2021, Sarah Joy was a co-editor for Boundless, the official anthology of the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. 

In her recent work, Sarah Joy explores poetry and movement to navigate the gray area of grief, loss, illness, and embodying change. The confessional aspects of her poetry often serve as an essential form of therapy. Sarah Joy finds that tough journeys turn her attention inward. She must learn to sit with this stillness no matter the level of discomfort. By leaning into the healing process, the body can find true rest and self-compassion. 

A bit of a traveler, Sarah Joy has lived in the Philippines, America, and Ireland. She adores reading children’s books with her two young sons, going hiking, taking photographs, sketching, globetrotting, and dabbling in ukulele.