Grace schulman has always been a poet deeply rooted in place and time. Over four decades and six previous collections, her poems have returned to the familiar scenery of New York City and Long Island. She’s written about her childhood and young adulthood in the city, her parents’ time, her grandparents’ time, and the New York City of Henry James and Walt Whitman. Across the decades, the same streets and subway cars, houses and stores, theaters and museums, and beaches and harbors have set the scene. This rootedness has given her work power and depth.
But in Without a Claim, Schulman renounces ownership. It’s a book of leave-taking and transience, filled with poems about loss and decline, poems that look at the world intently but refuse to cling or assert dominion. The book is also filled with poems of joy and praise — but it’s a joy that...
