Claude Before Time and Space: Poems

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.