Claudia Emerson, Late Wife

Day 120 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and I am reading Late Wife, by Claudia Emerson, because the same poet friend who wanted me to read The Painted Bed, by Donald Hall, wanted me to read this, so I borrowed it, and now I don't want to give it back. Sigh...but I will.

This won the Pulitzer Prize, and those Pulitzer prizewinners are good! The Wild Iris, a favorite of mine by Louise Gluck, also won the Pulitzer Prize.

I am about to start the last section, the actual "Late Wife" section, which 1) is subtitled "Letters to Kent," so it is epistolary, as was the first section, addressed to an ex-husband and 2) begins, I see, with sonnets. Googling, I found plenty of info on Emerson, and blurbs that tell me Kent is the new husband--first section was "Divorce Epistles," second was "Breaking Up the House"--and that Kent is the one with a "late wife," as in dead wife, though the first two sections of the book make the speaker into a "late wife" of her first marriage, too, dead and resurrected, in a way.

You can read "Artifact," the first sonnet in the "Late Wife" section, or book the author to speak, here at Blue Flower Arts. This is one of those lovely random things for me, as I am working on a poem with a quilt in it, too!

You can also read "Biology Lesson," about the link between the turtle and the bird, a poem from her next book, Figure Studies, which will now call to me as I love science as well as poetry, and here I get two, two, two mints in one! But I am a bit astonished at the number of typos in the poem on the Blue Flower Arts website--hope they fix that! Of course, I see how it can happen, as my pinky often does the same....

Here, at her own website, are Emerson's other books. Look at the gorgeous cover on Pinion. Oh, there is so much poetry I want to read. I have friends' books yet to order, and now these. How will I ever keep up? Many thanks for these borrowed books!

Holy cow! Her new husband is a musician, and she also writes songs with him and performs! Yay! Folk, bluegrass, jazz, blues, and more.

For the rest of the day, I will be musing on my own imagined band, Midlife Crisis. It could happen.