The House is Still Standing is peopled with charlatans, gingerbread men, children, and savants &#151 the thousands and the particular. Adrienne Barrett builds this nimble first collection with a supple craft. The 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&#146s voice is strong, anchored, inviting. Although she takes her readers through both &#147substance / and its downfall,&148 in the end, the structure is sound; she is holding it up.