Begin Again: Collected Poems - Softcover

Paley, Grace

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374527245 ISBN 13: 9780374527242

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001

Synopsis

A longtime teacher, activist, feminist, and masterful writer of short fiction and essays, Paley is also an accomplished poet. Combining her two previous collections with unpublished work, Begin Again traces the career of a direct, attentive, and always unpredictable poet. Whether describing the vicissitudes of life in New York City or the hard beauty of rural Vermont, whether celebrating the blessings of friendship or protesting against social injustice, her poems brim with compassion and tough good humor.

About this title

About the Author

Grace Paley, born in the Bronx in 1922, was a renowned writer and activist. Her Collected Stories was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Her other collections include Enormous Changes at the Last Minute and Just As I Thought. She died in Vermont on August 22, 2007.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

It is the responsibility of the poet to stand on street corners giving out poems and beautifully written leaflets also leaflets they can hardly bear to look at

because of the screaming rhetoric It is the responsibility of the poet to be lazy to hang out and prophesy It is the responsibility of the poet not to pay war taxes It is the responsibility of the poet to go in and out of ivory towers and two-room apartments on Avenue C and buckwheat fields and army camps It is the responsibility of the male poet to be a woman It is the responsibility of the female poet to be a woman . . . -from "Responsibility"

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374527245
• ISBN 13: 9780374527242
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 177