Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet: Essays and Interviews

"Seasoned with a dash of [Su's] meticulously crafted poetry and even a recipe, this collection celebrates words, culture, food, and the human act of making that binds them all together. A literary gourmand's delight."
--Kirkus Reviews"Su's soulful reflections call attention to the complex connections between place, cuisine, literature, and taste, and revealing interviews with Su . . . open a window onto her creative process . . . This provides much to savor."
--Publishers WeeklyIn this enchanting collection of essays and interviews, poet Adrienne Su reflects on her journey as a creative writer and avid home cook, beginning at a neighbor's dinner table in 1980s Atlanta--lingering over poems, poets, and connections between food and literature--and ending in her 2023 kitchen in central Pennsylvania.In Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, Adrienne Su contemplates her own use of food as a recurring metaphor, influential teachers and peers, the push and pull between cooking and writing, changing expectations around English usage, and craft questions such as: Why does some subject matter refuse to cooperate in the creative process, even when it appears close to home? How does one write a good poem about being happy? Why write in rhyme when it's time-consuming and mostly out of style? What is a poem's responsibility to the literal truth?Su's essays are driven by the tensions between worlds that overlap and collide: social conventions of the northern and southern United States; notions of what's American and what's Asian American; the demands of the page and the demands of the home; the solitariness of writing and the meaningful connection a poem can create between writer and reader. In interviews, often with fellow poets, she discusses a range of topics, from her early days in the Nuyorican poetry-slam scene to the solace of poetry and cooking during Covid-19 lockdown.While Su's previous books are all collections of poetry, she has been publishing individual essays for many years. Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet gathers the best of them into one volume for the first time.

Author: Adrienne Su
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
Published: 08/06/2024
Pages: 238
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.73lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9781589881921


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2024
Publishers Weekly 06/24/2024
Booklist 07/01/2024 pg. 11

About the Author
Adrienne Su is the author of five books of poems, most recently Peach State (2021), which was named a 2022 Book All Georgians Should Read. Her poems appear in many anthologies, including five volumes of The Best American Poetry. Among her awards are an NEA fellowship and residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Yaddo, and The Frost Place. An Atlanta native, she lives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where she is professor of creative writing at Dickinson College.