Late Wife Book

RIP Claudia Emerson. This is my second condolence in as many days.

I read this Pulitzer Prize winning collection a few months ago, but hadn't reviewed. What I love about poets like Claudia Emerson is that they're accessible, yet still musical. Her poems have a cadence, a beauty of language, but you don't need a code breaker to find their meaning. In my opinion, these are the best kind of poets and the kind whose work will be remembered and read through the ages.

Yet again, this is a sad loss for poetry. At 57, Emerson was in her prime.

Metaphor

We didn't know what woke us-just
cold moving, lighter than our breathing

The world bound by an icy ligature,
our house to the bat a warmer

hollowness that now it could not
leave. I screamed for you to do something

So you killed it with the broom,
cursing, sweeping the air. I wanted

you to do it-until you did.