Death by Renaissance: Poems

Strong poems with photos of an American industrial area around Pittsburgh, with stories of family, Italian-American family life, the struggle to go on.

Paola Corso was born in a Pittsburgh river town, Tarentum, where her Italian immigrant father and grandfather worked in the steel mill. She earned a B.A. from Boston College and a master�s degree from the City College of New York-CUNY where she won the Dejur Award for Creative Writing. She is a 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellow and author of the Pudding House chapbook A Proper Burial. Her poems have appeared in Italian Americana, The Progressive, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Western Pennsylvania History, Women�s Studies Quarterly, New Delta Review, and elsewhere. She currently teaches a creative writing workshop at Fordham University and lives in Brooklyn with playwright Michael Winks and son Giona.

George Thomas Mendel, a Pittsburgh photojournalist and fine art photographer for more than 20 years, has published in numerous books and magazines and has produced a variety of portfolios, including architecture and humanitarian projects.