SAN ANTONIO - s4story -- Tenderness meets pain meets joy here, offering up the voices of Black folks fostering connection with their children, their lovers and themselves. This is the premise of Adrienne Christian's third collection of poetry, "Worn" (Santa Fe Writer's Project, April 2021), which takes the reader through love and longing and manifests how we all cope and get dressed again after the harsh reality of our world lays us bare.

From ghazals about erotic kinks to the disappointment of a father, the poems presented in "Worn" explore the clothes we reach for first when loss strips us naked.

"In the fall of 2016, I had the idea to put together an anthology of poems about fashion and clothing. In gathering poems for the collection, I found fashion wasn't just about what people were wearing, but why they were wearing it," Christian says. "In other words, I discovered that the way we clothe and accessorize ourselves can be a highly political act, because the why of what we wear runs deep. That's how this collection was born."

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In addition to "Worn," Christian is the author of two other poetry collections: "A Proper Lover" (2017) and "12023 Woodmont Avenue" (2013).

Her poetry, prose, and photographs have been featured in CALYX, phoebe, Prairie Schooner, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Los Angeles Review as The Editor's Choice and other magazines and journals. In 2020, she was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in poetry.

Common themes in her work are romantic love, family, trauma and African-American life.

"Worn" is available for pre-order on Amazon.

About the Author
Adrienne Christian, Ph.D., is a poet, writer and fine art photographer. In 2020, she earned a Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska. She also has an M.F.A. in English/Contemporary Poetry from Pacific University and a B.A. in English/19th Century British Literature from the University of Michigan.

Christian is a recipient of the 2007 University of Michigan "Five Under Ten" Young Alumni Recognition Award. In 2016, she was a finalist for The Rita Dove International Poetry Award and in 2020, she won the Common Ground poetry award for her poem "Wedding Dress." She is a native of Detroit and currently resides in San Antonio.

Visit www.adriennechristian.com.