Southern Messenger Poets

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 with a series of poems named after the poet’s father. This illuminating body of work displays a master poet at the height of her craft.