Scan barcode
pattydsf's review against another edition
4.0
Spring Ice Storm
The forecast had not predicted it,
and its beginning, a calming, rumbled dusk
and pleasant lightning, she welcomed as harbinger
of rain. Then as night came she heard the world
relapse, slide backward into winter’s insistent
tick and hiss. In the morning, she woke to a powerless
house, the baseboards cold, the sky blank,
mercury hardfallen as the ice and fixed
even at noon. The woodpile on the porch dwindled
to its last layer; she had not replenished it
for a month and could see beyond it windblown ice
in the shed where the axe angled Excalibur-like,
frozen in the wood. Still, she didn’t worry
beyond the fate of the daffodils, green-sheathed,
the forsythia and quince already bloomed out—
knowing this couldn’t last. But by afternoon
she did begin feeding the fire in the cast-iron
stove ordinary things she thought she could replace,
watching through the small window of isinglass
the fast-burning wooden spoons, picture frames,
then the phone book and stack of old almanacs—
forgotten predictions and phases of the moon—
before resorting to a brittle wicker rocker,
quick as dried grass to catch, bedframes and slats,
ladderback chairs, the labor of breaking them up
against the porch railing its own warming.
Feverlike, the freeze broke after two days,
and she woke to a melting steady as the rain
had been. The fire she had tended more carefully
than the household it had consumed she could now
let go out, and she was surprised at how little
she mourned the rooms heat-scoured, readied for spring.
I have known about Claudia Emerson for at least a decade. I know she won the Library of Virginia's Annual Literary Award for poetry at least twice and that she won the Pulitzer in 2006. I also know that she died much too young.
I should have found a way to hear Emerson read her poetry since she lived not far from me. That never happened and somehow I had not read any of her poetry collections. So, since this is National Poetry month, I decided to start the celebration with this book.
Emerson was a wonderful writer. This collection included a series of poems set in a girls’ school. These 25 poems are amazing. I felt like I had attended some of the classes. There are little details in each poem that spoke volumes to me. Interestingly, for most of Emerson’s poems, it is the last lines that not only tie the poems together, but that also makes me want to read the whole poem again.
I have included my favorite poem of this collection, but I liked all of them. If you are a poetry reader and have not encountered Claudia Emerson, look online and see what you think. I feel blessed by her way with words.
The forecast had not predicted it,
and its beginning, a calming, rumbled dusk
and pleasant lightning, she welcomed as harbinger
of rain. Then as night came she heard the world
relapse, slide backward into winter’s insistent
tick and hiss. In the morning, she woke to a powerless
house, the baseboards cold, the sky blank,
mercury hardfallen as the ice and fixed
even at noon. The woodpile on the porch dwindled
to its last layer; she had not replenished it
for a month and could see beyond it windblown ice
in the shed where the axe angled Excalibur-like,
frozen in the wood. Still, she didn’t worry
beyond the fate of the daffodils, green-sheathed,
the forsythia and quince already bloomed out—
knowing this couldn’t last. But by afternoon
she did begin feeding the fire in the cast-iron
stove ordinary things she thought she could replace,
watching through the small window of isinglass
the fast-burning wooden spoons, picture frames,
then the phone book and stack of old almanacs—
forgotten predictions and phases of the moon—
before resorting to a brittle wicker rocker,
quick as dried grass to catch, bedframes and slats,
ladderback chairs, the labor of breaking them up
against the porch railing its own warming.
Feverlike, the freeze broke after two days,
and she woke to a melting steady as the rain
had been. The fire she had tended more carefully
than the household it had consumed she could now
let go out, and she was surprised at how little
she mourned the rooms heat-scoured, readied for spring.
I have known about Claudia Emerson for at least a decade. I know she won the Library of Virginia's Annual Literary Award for poetry at least twice and that she won the Pulitzer in 2006. I also know that she died much too young.
I should have found a way to hear Emerson read her poetry since she lived not far from me. That never happened and somehow I had not read any of her poetry collections. So, since this is National Poetry month, I decided to start the celebration with this book.
Emerson was a wonderful writer. This collection included a series of poems set in a girls’ school. These 25 poems are amazing. I felt like I had attended some of the classes. There are little details in each poem that spoke volumes to me. Interestingly, for most of Emerson’s poems, it is the last lines that not only tie the poems together, but that also makes me want to read the whole poem again.
I have included my favorite poem of this collection, but I liked all of them. If you are a poetry reader and have not encountered Claudia Emerson, look online and see what you think. I feel blessed by her way with words.
courtney_mcallister's review against another edition
4.0
I've always been fascinated by the poetic sequence. Each poem can stand alone, but is also structurally and thematically connected to its companions. You can read one in isolation, but the effect seems more intense when the individual pieces are entered into a dialogic dynamic. Figure Studies contains several closely-related sequences. The first segment offers up fragments and impressions based on Emerson's girlhood years in a boarding school. The themes encompass a wide range of coming-of-age experiences, but there are no fully realized characters. On the contrary, the poems seem to speak for an anonymous collective.
In the subsequent sections of Figure Studies, we are introduced to actual characters and more personal scenarios. I really enjoyed the manner in which the poetic sequence gradually carries us into increasing layers of interiority. Rather than plunging us into the personal or intimate thoughts of a single speaker, Figure Studies allows that intimate voice to emerge by degrees.
The poems in the final section deal with more adult experiences. The poetic voice itself seems to mature as Figure Studies follows both a social and a personal trajectory, moving from cloistered anonymous youth to more autonomous adulthood.
In the subsequent sections of Figure Studies, we are introduced to actual characters and more personal scenarios. I really enjoyed the manner in which the poetic sequence gradually carries us into increasing layers of interiority. Rather than plunging us into the personal or intimate thoughts of a single speaker, Figure Studies allows that intimate voice to emerge by degrees.
The poems in the final section deal with more adult experiences. The poetic voice itself seems to mature as Figure Studies follows both a social and a personal trajectory, moving from cloistered anonymous youth to more autonomous adulthood.
pattydsf's review
4.0
Spring Ice Storm
The forecast had not predicted it,
and its beginning, a calming, rumbled dusk
and pleasant lightning, she welcomed as harbinger
of rain. Then as night came she heard the world
relapse, slide backward into winter’s insistent
tick and hiss. In the morning, she woke to a powerless
house, the baseboards cold, the sky blank,
mercury hardfallen as the ice and fixed
even at noon. The woodpile on the porch dwindled
to its last layer; she had not replenished it
for a month and could see beyond it windblown ice
in the shed where the axe angled Excalibur-like,
frozen in the wood. Still, she didn’t worry
beyond the fate of the daffodils, green-sheathed,
the forsythia and quince already bloomed out—
knowing this couldn’t last. But by afternoon
she did begin feeding the fire in the cast-iron
stove ordinary things she thought she could replace,
watching through the small window of isinglass
the fast-burning wooden spoons, picture frames,
then the phone book and stack of old almanacs—
forgotten predictions and phases of the moon—
before resorting to a brittle wicker rocker,
quick as dried grass to catch, bedframes and slats,
ladderback chairs, the labor of breaking them up
against the porch railing its own warming.
Feverlike, the freeze broke after two days,
and she woke to a melting steady as the rain
had been. The fire she had tended more carefully
than the household it had consumed she could now
let go out, and she was surprised at how little
she mourned the rooms heat-scoured, readied for spring.
I have known about Claudia Emerson for at least a decade. I know she won the Library of Virginia's Annual Literary Award for poetry at least twice and that she won the Pulitzer in 2006. I also know that she died much too young.
I should have found a way to hear Emerson read her poetry since she lived not far from me. That never happened and somehow I had not read any of her poetry collections. So, since this is National Poetry month, I decided to start the celebration with this book.
Emerson was a wonderful writer. This collection included a series of poems set in a girls’ school. These 25 poems are amazing. I felt like I had attended some of the classes. There are little details in each poem that spoke volumes to me. Interestingly, for most of Emerson’s poems, it is the last lines that not only tie the poems together, but that also makes me want to read the whole poem again.
I have included my favorite poem of this collection, but I liked all of them. If you are a poetry reader and have not encountered Claudia Emerson, look online and see what you think. I feel blessed by her way with words.
The forecast had not predicted it,
and its beginning, a calming, rumbled dusk
and pleasant lightning, she welcomed as harbinger
of rain. Then as night came she heard the world
relapse, slide backward into winter’s insistent
tick and hiss. In the morning, she woke to a powerless
house, the baseboards cold, the sky blank,
mercury hardfallen as the ice and fixed
even at noon. The woodpile on the porch dwindled
to its last layer; she had not replenished it
for a month and could see beyond it windblown ice
in the shed where the axe angled Excalibur-like,
frozen in the wood. Still, she didn’t worry
beyond the fate of the daffodils, green-sheathed,
the forsythia and quince already bloomed out—
knowing this couldn’t last. But by afternoon
she did begin feeding the fire in the cast-iron
stove ordinary things she thought she could replace,
watching through the small window of isinglass
the fast-burning wooden spoons, picture frames,
then the phone book and stack of old almanacs—
forgotten predictions and phases of the moon—
before resorting to a brittle wicker rocker,
quick as dried grass to catch, bedframes and slats,
ladderback chairs, the labor of breaking them up
against the porch railing its own warming.
Feverlike, the freeze broke after two days,
and she woke to a melting steady as the rain
had been. The fire she had tended more carefully
than the household it had consumed she could now
let go out, and she was surprised at how little
she mourned the rooms heat-scoured, readied for spring.
I have known about Claudia Emerson for at least a decade. I know she won the Library of Virginia's Annual Literary Award for poetry at least twice and that she won the Pulitzer in 2006. I also know that she died much too young.
I should have found a way to hear Emerson read her poetry since she lived not far from me. That never happened and somehow I had not read any of her poetry collections. So, since this is National Poetry month, I decided to start the celebration with this book.
Emerson was a wonderful writer. This collection included a series of poems set in a girls’ school. These 25 poems are amazing. I felt like I had attended some of the classes. There are little details in each poem that spoke volumes to me. Interestingly, for most of Emerson’s poems, it is the last lines that not only tie the poems together, but that also makes me want to read the whole poem again.
I have included my favorite poem of this collection, but I liked all of them. If you are a poetry reader and have not encountered Claudia Emerson, look online and see what you think. I feel blessed by her way with words.
More...