Shara McCal­lum nev­er uses the word ​“haunt”, but the poem is about the haunt­ing of those who have gone before. Yet the haunt­ing is pur­pose­ful. It is shot through with the poet’s sense that she owes the dead some account­abil­i­ty, and the dead seem to agree. As nec­es­sary as it is to read ​“No Ruined Stone” as a broad med­i­ta­tion on the lega­cy of a trou­bled his­to­ry, (the poem, ​“No Ruined Stone” is the title poem of her new col­lec­tion that, among oth­er things, explores the impli­ca­tions of transat­lantic slav­ery), at its emo­tion­al core, is a ten­der account­ing of loss and mem­o­ry. This grand­moth­er, one sens­es, is also haunt­ing by inhab­it­ing every­thing the poet sees around her. This fierce pres­ence is the unusu­al but quite famil­iar theme of her elegy.