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 stark details of city life such as trumpets that blare “louder than street sirens.” and iron fences / handwrought with lyres, Greek frets, acanthus leaves.” Schulman brings passion and intelligence to bear on occasions she ponders, whether historical or contemporary. In joy and in grief, she gazes at the light and sees the majesty in ordinary things. This collection ranges across 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.’”
