a chain is a house to sleep in

This poetry collection moves through contemporary consciousness—parasocial desire under climate catastrophe, guilt shaped by class awareness—always attentive to the position from which it speaks. Even amid millennial hustle culture, ecological collapse, and the long, exhausting pressure of the male gaze, Deirdre Z. Camba’s poetic conceit refuses diminishment.

Icons of desire and locality—figures like Mr. Pogi 1996—are tethered to Marikina’s histories of flooding, survival, and the spectacle of suffering. A Chain Is a House to Sleep In insists that attention, memory, and lyric invention remain viable forms of resistance. Across its lyrical arc, the reader is often led to assume that the “you” is an unnamed beloved; instead, the book reveals a more difficult attachment. The beloved here is modern life as a woman in Metro Manila—unromantic, relentless, and deeply intimate.

— Esquire Philippines