Living Quarters
Poems
Living Quarters uses both the structure of a domestic space and the rhythms of the seasons to seek, but not reliably find, order and consolation in life's seeming disorder. Relationships dissolve; deaths come too soon; the past vanishes; the earth that gives beautiful and nourishing foods swallows up the creatures for whom it provides. These poems struggle with that mix of affirmation and destruction, celebrating nature's generosity while trying to make peace with its cruelty.
Thought-provoking poems reflect an intimate internal dialogue, addressing, among other ideas, Is it really safer at home, or are there perils within our closest relationships, in daily domestic ritual? And where is home, when people are constantly moving, marriages dissolving, new relationships beginning and ending? When is a house just a house, and when does it become a home? Cooking warms a house and gives it a feeling of home, but does there also need to be a surrounding, anchoring community?
Born and raised in Atlanta, Adrienne Su was educated at Harvard and the University of Virginia. She is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and has had residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and The Frost Place in Franconia, NH. Her work appeared in Best American Poetry 2000 and 2013. She is an Associate Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. This is her fourth book.
