{"product_id":"figure-studies-9780807133613","title":"Figure Studies","description":"\u003cp\u003ePoet Claudia Emerson begins \u003ci\u003eFigure Studies\u003c\/i\u003e 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 to -- the 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; these poems, told from the outside looking in, highlight a speculative voicing of all the gossips cannot know. In Early Lessons, the third section, children narrate as they also observe similarly solitary women, the children's innocence allowing them to see in farther than the gossips can. The fourth section offers studies of women and men in situations in which gender, with all of its complexities, figures powerfully.The follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection \u003ci\u003eLate Wife, \u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eFigure Studies\u003c\/i\u003e upholds Emerson's place among contemporary poetry's elite.\u003cbr\u003eThe Mannequin above Main Street Motors\u003cbr\u003eWhen the only ladies' dress shop closed, she was left on the street for trash, unsalvageable, \u003cbr\u003eone arm missing, lost at the shoulder, one leg at the hip. But she was wearing a blue-sequined negligee \u003cbr\u003eand blonde wig, so they helped themselves to her on a lark -- drunken impulse -- and for years kept her \u003cbr\u003eleaning in a corner, beside an attic window, rendered invisible. The dusk \u003cbr\u003ewas also perpetual in the garage below, punctuated only by bare bulbs hung close \u003cbr\u003eover the engines. An oily grime coated the walls, and a decade of calendars promoted \u003cbr\u003estock-car drivers, women in dated swimsuits, even their bodies out of fashion. Radio distorted \u003cbr\u003ethere; cigarette smoke moaned, the pedal steel conceding to that place a greater, echoing \u003cbr\u003esorrow. So, lame, forgotten prank, she remained, back turned forever to the dark storage\u003cbr\u003ebehind her, gaze leveled just above anyone's who could have looked up \u003cbr\u003eto mistake in the cast of her face fresh longing -- her expression still reluctant figure for it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Louisiana State University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/01\/2008\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780807133613\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 65\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.28lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.54h x 6.32w x 0.24d\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Claudia Emerson","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":36644066099356,"sku":"9780807133613","price":17.81,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_0770b8ed-ff41-48e5-b6e5-a59bd42a25ef.jpg?v=1603857840","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/figure-studies-9780807133613","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}