Figure Studies

Poet Claudia Emerson begins Figure Studies with a twenty-five poem lyric sequence called "All Girls School," offering intricate views of a richly imagined boarding school for girls. Whether focused on a lesson, a teacher, or the girls themselves as they collectively "school"or refuse tothe poems explore ways girls are "trained" in the broadest sense of the word. "Gossips," the second section, is a shorter sequence narrated by women as they talk about other women in a variety of isolations. The follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Late Wife, Figure Studies upholds Emerson's place among contemporary poetry's elite.