An Epistolary Elegy by Claudia Emerson
Pinion: An Elegy by Claudia Emerson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Claudia Emerson’s untimely death is still a great loss to those who love great poetry. In this epistolary collection of dramatic monologues from 2002 , Emerson toldthe story of a southern family, hinting at the deeper issues of their relationships while engaging us deeply in their experiences. Her language is always both simple and luminescent:
The second day, the creek
argued with the rain, grew bolder before
losing itself, overcoming the banks
that had defined it.
The older sister recalls defending a bird against the cruelty of her brother:
I turned,
grabbed a tobacco stick, and flayed your cap
from your scalp, your scalp from your bone, aiming
for the coiled quick of you when I failed, plunged
my arms in the water instead and saved
the thrush, hurled i back at the stunned sky…
The younger sister is given a voice in prose to introduce the journals and letters of her (presumably deceased) older siblings as she visits their abandoned home. So much goes on the white space as we read, so much is meant by what is subtly unsaid.
the cage of my ribs swept clean.
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