Tribute Interview with Pulitzer Poet Claudia Emerson Dead at 57

Claudia Emerson, a former mail carrier who turned to writing in middle age and received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for her book “Late Wife,” an elegiac collection of verses illuminating the complex legacies wrought by divorce and death, died Dec. 4 at a hospital in Richmond. She was 57.

Minstrel & Muse host Linda Rez was honored to welcome Pulitzer poet Claudia Emerson to the show before her death.

Claudia's book of poems, Late Wife, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2006. Her current work, Secure the Shadow, is a personal look at death and our universal need to hold on. Claudia had a distinguished career and was awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Library of Congress and the Guggenheim Foundation and is the former poet laureate of Virginia. She was a professor of English and Arrington Distinguished Chair of Poetry at The University of Mary Washington and contributing editor at Shenandoah Literary Magazine. She was also a lovely human being.

Join us for a conversation with one of the world's greatest poets, the late Claudia Emerson. 

Music by award-winning singer/songwriter Bruce Dalzell. Bruce is also the friend mentioned by Claudia in her story of the piano. Get Claudia's book.