Claude before Time and Space

In Claude before Time and Space , her final collection, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Claudia Emerson quietly but fiercely explores the themes of mortality and time. In the first section of this book, “The Wheel,” Emerson uses a rural southern setting in poems that reflect on memory, the self, and relationships. In section two, “Bird Ephemera , ” she explores historical figures—from an early naturalist and writer who raised her children in poverty to a small-town doctor. The collection concludes w