The Shape of a City: New and Selected Poems, 1976 - 2021

Exquisite new work along with a selection of her finest poems spanning five decades from the essential poet and national treasure, Frost Medal winner Grace Schulman.
Again, the Dawn draws together poems from
eight books plus a generous selection of new poems. In them, Grace Schulman
hears the call to praise tempered by harsh details of city life such as
trumpets that blare "louder than street sirens." and iron fences / handwrought with lyres, Greek frets,
acanthus leaves." One of our essential poets, she brings passion and
intelligence to bear on occasions she ponders, whether historical or
contemporary. In joy and in grief, Schulman gazes at the light and sees the
majesty in ordinary things. This collection spans five
decades of prize-winning books, and yet, as its title exclaims, the poetry of
Grace Schulman is as new as the rising sun. As Julie Sheehan has written of her most recent volume, "Read this collection if you, too, have grieved. Read it if you
need your own guide to the underworld. Read it if you've ever felt proud to get
at the meaning of poems, of art, of music. Read it if you want to be restored
to the world around you, if late-stage capitalism or imperialism or politics
have numbed you. Read it, then look up, breathe in, raise your own hands, and
let Grace Schulman assure you: 'I'll be there, / gazing impiously -- unless / that
is what sacred is, the work, the looking up, / the wonder.'"