Review: Poet Chelsea Rathburn’s collection ‘Broken Houses’ evokes the fragility of home

Can our dream house complete us? Georgia Poet Laureate Chelsea Rathburn asks — and answers — this question in her fourth poetry collection, Broken Houses. Rathburn, who says she “grew up in a family where houses were always more than physical structures,” has penned a memoir in verse questioning the validity and security of home. 

The first poem in the collection, titled “Loved Houses,” serves as an introduction to the rest of the book, which is grouped into five sections. In this prefacing poem, Rathburn writes, “If I mapped my childhood, it would be dotted with houses / my parents wanted to buy but couldn’t afford. / They pointed to them out of car windows / certain that this was the way wealth was made …” 

Multiple poems in the book return to the idea that a better abode will result in a better life. And, like most young children, Rathburn initially accepts what her parents have passed down. In the poem “Miniature,” she recalls an awe-inspiring dollhouse when she writes, “My favorite was a turreted Queen Anne / all gingerbread trim and curving porches. / I yearned for that house, squinted through its windows / imagined the rooms aglow with chandeliers. / So many ways to fill an emptiness.” 

Though her parents eventually purchased a house of their own, it did little to satisfy their hunger for the unattainable, Rathburn said. “Even after my parents bought our house with a VA loan, they loved going to open houses and sneaking inside homes being constructed,” she said in a recent interview with ArtsATL. “I knew the names of local builders the way that other kids knew athletes or actors.” 

Eventually, however, the poet grew up and realized a home can neither fulfill us nor protect us. She recounts the death of her mother’s neighbor in the poem “My Husband Out Too Far” and writes how the widow said he “died by suicide / in a place he loved.” 

Similarly, the collection’s later lines depict how a building cannot safeguard us from chaos such as a hurricane, a fire or a violent relationship. It’s an uncomfortable truth, one that Rathburn came to deeper terms with when unearthing family history. Not only did her father grow up in the foster care system, but her grandmother’s first cousin was a bank robber. The “giant binder of family history” she worked with while writing her book served as a reminder that life is complicated, with or without structural refuge. 

Fans of Rathburn’s earlier work will be glad to know that Broken Houses calls back to her previous book, Still Life With Mother and Knife, particularly the poem “Story Time.”

“I think of that poem as the bridge between the two collections because it led me to think about the way that my father’s unstable childhood cast a shadow over my own,” she said. 

Broken Houses is the rare contemporary collection that manages to balance well-crafted verse with readability. Though the messages can occasionally feel heavy-handed, it’s a timely work for this moment in history when many of us are questioning the “American dream” of homeownership.

According to Rathburn, working on the collection bore more fruit than she expected, and another book of poetry isn’t far behind. 

“When I was assembling Broken Houses, I pulled several poems out that didn’t quite fit. Reading them together, I noticed they had a loose theme in common, so I’m writing around that and seeing what happens,” she said. 

Get the Book:

Broken Houses. Chelsea Rathburn. LSU Press. July 2026. $20.95 for print; $9.95 for e-book.

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Denise K. James has been an ArtsATL senior editor since 2022. A native of South Carolina residing in Atlanta, she holds an MFA in narrative nonfiction from the University of Georgia and a master of arts in English from the College of Charleston.