The house is still standing is peopled with charlatans, gingerbread men, children and savants â the thousands and the particular. Within Adrienne Barrett's nimbly built first collection, poems deke and swerve, from the wry to the theatrical to the intimate.

Whether riffing on the secret identities of public intellectuals and pop icons or penning elegiac verse, Barrett's voice is strong, anchored and inviting. Although she takes her readers through both "substance / and its downfall," in the end, the structure is sound; she is holding it up.