Paola Corso
Copyright © 2013 Paola Corso. All Rights Reserved.
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ONCE I WAS TOLD THE AIR
WAS NOT FOR BREATHING
by Paola Corso
With Introduction by
Michele Fazio and Michelle M. Tokarczyk
"Corso's precise and vivid poems are lyric evidence of the
harsh lives and labors of working-class men and women.
She documents the dangerous conditions of workers in
steel mills and sweatshops, of anyone downwind of
industrial polluters' carcinogenic fumes. Tragically, much
of our air now 'is not safe for breathing,' but these
essential and heart-breaking poems are pure oxygen.
Breathe deeply and learn from this wise poet."
—Maggie Anderson, author of Windfall: New and
Selected Poems
"Paola Corso sings of bodies—wounded bodies, beaten
bodies, defeated bodies, bodies weakened and diseased,
dead bodies. These are brave bodies. They are the bodies
of working people from mines and factories, from Pittsburgh and from New York, from the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 and from the sweatshops of Chinatown following
the attack on the Twin Towers. They are the bodies of American girls, Chinese girls,
Taiwanese girls. This poet is relentless in her search for the traces of these unsung, the
workers whose voices and stories resonate throughout this small book of epic proportions.
Corso is the rescue poet worker digging through the rubble, determined to bring the
stories of the forgotten to light. Paola Corso has given us poetry of witness in all its power
to move us to remember and to act."
—Edvige Giunta, author of Writing with an Accent: Contemporary Italian American
Women Authors
. . .
”Meticulously footnoted, the book has a wonderful quality of poetry blooming out of a
great ocean of information and lost voices, past and present.”
—Meredith Sue Willis, Books for Readers
“…animated by simmering working-class anger.”
—Bill O’Driscoll, The City Paper
Read an Excerpt.
Read a Book Review.
Click here to order from University of Wisconsin’s Parallel Press.
harsh lives and labors of working-class men and women.
She documents the dangerous conditions of workers in
steel mills and sweatshops, of anyone downwind of
industrial polluters' carcinogenic fumes. Tragically, much
of our air now 'is not safe for breathing,' but these
essential and heart-breaking poems are pure oxygen.
Breathe deeply and learn from this wise poet."
—Maggie Anderson, author of Windfall: New and
Selected Poems
"Paola Corso sings of bodies—wounded bodies, beaten
bodies, defeated bodies, bodies weakened and diseased,
dead bodies. These are brave bodies. They are the bodies
of working people from mines and factories, from Pittsburgh and from New York, from the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 and from the sweatshops of Chinatown following
the attack on the Twin Towers. They are the bodies of American girls, Chinese girls,
Taiwanese girls. This poet is relentless in her search for the traces of these unsung, the
workers whose voices and stories resonate throughout this small book of epic proportions.
Corso is the rescue poet worker digging through the rubble, determined to bring the
stories of the forgotten to light. Paola Corso has given us poetry of witness in all its power
to move us to remember and to act."
—Edvige Giunta, author of Writing with an Accent: Contemporary Italian American
Women Authors
. . .
”Meticulously footnoted, the book has a wonderful quality of poetry blooming out of a
great ocean of information and lost voices, past and present.”
—Meredith Sue Willis, Books for Readers
“…animated by simmering working-class anger.”
—Bill O’Driscoll, The City Paper
Read an Excerpt.
Read a Book Review.
Click here to order from University of Wisconsin’s Parallel Press.
