Award-winning poet Gudrun Mouw fearlessly exposes the raw underbelly of modern dysfunctional marriage through her frank and elegant exploration of her own 21-year transformation. From early disenchantment, through the kaleidoscopic spectrum of motherhood, to eventual separation and spiritual resolution, Wife of the House leads the reader on a turbulent and timeless journey toward self-truth and lasting fulfillment within the constraints of addiction and longing. Sometimes heartrending, often deeply provoking, each poem unerringly reveals another facet of the intricate and echoing spiral that is any tumultuous intimate relationship. Whether exploring the frailty of a family's ability to acknowledge each other, the violation of trust, or the resounding richness of a moment in nature's embrace, the author brings insight and exquisite grace to the layered complexities of everyday life. Filled with images of ferocity and emptiness, Wife of the House delicately and piercingly illumines the heart and depicts the universal quest for balance and peace. Gudrun Mouw has shared her passion for truth and language as a community college English teacher, a university librarian, a columnist, and a California poet-in-the-schools. She has also taught yoga and meditation in the Santa Barbara area for many years. Her poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Practical Mystic, Calyx, and other literary journals, and she is the recipient of a Sri Chinmoy Poetry Award, a Joycean Arts Guild Award, and a Gladys Brown Award for poetry. She lives and writes near Santa Barbara.