Grace Schulman is an American poet and academic born in New York City in 1935. She studied at Bard College and graduated from American University in 1955. She received her Phd in 1971 from New York University.
Her work has been published in highly regarded journals such as The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and Atlantic Monthly. She was previously the Poetry Editor of the Nation from 1972-2006. She was also the director of the Poetry Center 92nd Street Y from 1973-1985.
She has published seven collections of poetry with the most recent one out in 2013 called "Without a Claim: Poems".
The Button Box
A sea animal stalked its prey
slithering under her bed, and gorged
on buttons torn from castaways;
ever unsated, it grew large
until it became a deity
spewing out buttons in a fire
of brass for blazers, delft or ruby
for shirts--and dangerous. You'd hear
it snarl when the beds were being made.
It ate stray pins and shot out poison.
But mother, who stuffed its wooden frame,
scooped up waterfalls of suns,
enamel moons, clocks, cameos,
carved pinwheels, stars, tiny "Giottos,"
peacocks strutting out at sundown,
FDR's profile, flags of Britain,
steel helmets, each with a mission.
Mother sewed ballerinas set
in circles on your satin dress,
onyx buttons that would join
you, collar-to-hood, at graduation;
she would find in the creature's lair
"bones" of an army officer,
"pearls" of a war bride's dressing gown;
nights when the radio hissed dive bombers
my mother dreamed that she could right
the world again by making sure
you had your buttons, sewed on tight.
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