Fidelity: Poems

Front Cover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Jul 15, 2014 - Poetry - 96 pages

Just before her death in 2007 at the age of eighty-four, Grace Paley completed Fidelity, a wise and poignant book of poems.

Full of memories of friends and family and incisive observations of life in both her beloved hometown, New York City, and rural Vermont, the poems are sober and playful, experimenting with form while remaining eminently readable. They explore the beginnings and ends of relationships, the ties that bind siblings, the workings of dreams, the surreal strangeness of the aging body—all imbued with her unique perspective and voice. Mournful and nostalgic, but also ruefully funny and full of love, Fidelity is Grace Paley's passionate and haunting elegy for the life she was leaving behind.

 

Contents

Proverbs
3
Met a Woman on the Plane
9
a new york city man is
15
The HardHearted Rich
21
Birth ofa Child
27
It Doesnt Matter If
33
the very little girl looked at her grandfather
39
News
45
Suddenly Theres Poughkeepsie
53
Went Out Walking
56
On the Park Bench
62
All the old women came out in the sun
68
Windows
75
Education
81
Copyright

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About the author (2014)

Born in the Bronx in 1922, Grace Paley was a renowned writer and activist. Her Collected Stories was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She died in Vermont on August 22, 2007.

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