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Overview
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.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466875814 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Publication date: | 07/15/2014 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 96 |
| File size: | 203 KB |
About the Author
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.
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.
Read an Excerpt
Fidelity
By Grace Paley
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2008 The Estate of Grace PaleyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-7581-4
CHAPTER 1
PROVERBS
A person's anger should be respected
even when it isn't shared
a person's happiness should be shared
even if it isn't understood
a person should be understood though
he has brought both his brows together
in anger and also suddenly begun to laugh
a person should be in love most of
the time this is the last proverb
and may be learned by all the organs
capable of bodily response
ANTI-LOVE POEM
Sometimes you don't want to love the person you love
you turn your face away from that face
whose eyes lips might make you give up anger
forget insult steal sadness of not wanting
to love turn away then turn away at breakfast
in the evening don't lift your eyes from the paper
to see that face in all its seriousness a
sweetness of concentration he holds his book
in his hand the hard-knuckled winter wood
scarred fingers turn away that's all you can
do old as you are to save yourself from love
ON OCCASION
I forget the names of my friends
and the names of the flowers in
my garden my friends remind me
Grace it's us the flowers just
stand there stunned by the sun
A long time ago my mother said
darling there are also wildflowers
but look these I planted
my flowers are pink and rose and
orange they're sturdy they make
new petals every day to fill in
their fat round faces
suddenly before thought I
called out ZINNIA zinnia
zinnia along came a sunny
summer breeze they swayed
lightly bowed I said Mother
FATHERS
Fathers are
more fathering
these days they have
accomplished this by
being more mothering
what luck for them that
women's lib happened then
the dream of new fathering
began to shine in the eyes
of free women and was
irresistible
on the New York subways
and the mass transits
of other cities one may
see fatherings of many colors
with their round babies on
their laps this may also
happen in the countryside
these scenes were brand new
exciting for an old woman who
had watched the old fathers
gathering once again in
familiar army camps and com
fortable war rooms to consider
the necessary eradication of
the new fathering fathers
(who are their sons) as well
as the women and children who
will surely be in the way
why shouldn't men look at women
and women look at men
and women look at women
and men look at men
why shouldn't they
size each other up (as
we used to say)
why isn't there more
of that looking that
casual catching of
breath in plain
appreciation or rejection why
isn't there more of it what
old people sometimes ex
perienced as shock and a
dangerous heartbeat which
sometimes erupted into
love at first sight (as
it is called to this day)
and as old people we must
warn it may once in a startling
while last forever (as it
is called)
I MET A WOMAN ON THE PLANE
she came from somewhere around Tampa
she was going to Chicago
I liked her a lot
she'd had five children
no she'd had six one died
at twenty-three days
people said at least you didn't
get too attached
she had married at sixteen she
married again twenty years later
she said she loved her first husband
just couldn't manage life
five small children? I said
no not that
what? him?
no me she said
I couldn't get over that baby girl
everyone else did the big
kids you'll drive us all crazy
they said but that baby you can't
believe her beautifulness
when I came into the kids' room
in her little crib not a month old
not breathing they say get over it
it's more than ten years go away leave
us for a while so I did that here I am she said
where are you going
you can't think without thinking about something
my friends who are Buddhists are sometimes thinking
weeks on end about how to think about nothing
they are often successful
sometimes looking
at that famous sculpture (or a picture of it)
I think oh he is surely not thinking about any
thing he only wants to give the appearance to
passersby for some reason or he needs to hold
his heavy head in his hands which will allow
thoughts or ideas into his stoniness
just as I putting
my pen to paper am pretty sure that something
which has pressed upon my breath beyond bearing
will appear in words take shape and singing
let me go on with my life
THEN
when she came to meet him at the ferry
he said you are so pale worn so
frail standing on her toes
to reach his ear she whispered
I am an old woman oh then
he was always kind
freedom has overtaken me I
had run ahead of it for years
along an interesting but
narrow road obeyed at least
half the rules imposed by
lovers children a house a
political position now out
of breath probably I'm stuck
freedom has hold of my jacket
won't let go I am alone
before I was nobody
I was me after
I was nobody I
was me I wish
I could have rested
in me a little longer
there was something
I was supposed to tell
but it isn't allowed
a new york city man is
standing on the street corner
he's smiling up at a fireman hanging
on to the ladder of his fire engine
the fire engine passes between us
slowly it turns the corner it is
going home to its firehouse
I am in a taxi stuck in traffic
I smile at the smiling man he
nods his head courteously we
know each other our newyorkness
Thank God there is no god
or we'd all be lost
if it is He who sends us howling
in murderous despair at torture
hatred three or four times a generation
there'd be no hope and if He permitted
peace to appear then one day great plates
of stone beneath the orchards and sea may
move slowly against one another earthquake
if it is He who built that narrow a bridge
across which we are invited to walk
without fear while all around us
the old the lame the awkward the jumping
up-and-down children are tumbling off
or sometimes pushed into the hideous
gorge if it is He then we are surely lost
if it is He who offers free will but
only sometimes a peculiar gift
for a people who have just distinguished
their right hand from their left
but if we are responsible con
sider our frequent love for one another
because this is nowadays we may be able
to look over great distances into
each other's eyes these are the tele-
phonic electronic digital nowadays
famous for money and loneliness but we
have defeated Babel by accepting the words
of strangers in glorious translations if
we can be responsible if we have
become responsible
THE HARD-HEARTED RICH
Oh how hard the hard-hearted rich are
when they meet a working person in their places
of work a cab or a restaurant kitchen
and the hard heart beats and eases the mouth
into saying well they do get minimum wage
probably and when they meet an
ordinary bum or maybe a homeless person
on their street or broad boulevard
standing on the pavement common to
all the good shops holding a paper cup or cap
asking for change oh say the hard-hearted rich
they will use it for drugs or drink and be found
at midnight in drunken sleep in the doorway
of one of the best shops of all
Then the hard-hearted rich and
there are many many in our city
just as there are many many women and
men working in hard-driven poverty
or not working at all oh the hard-hearted rich
move into the glorious evening of drinking and talking
and eating and drinking again into sleep
in their queen-size beds as though they
were queens with kings beside each other
and it's night and the moon's bright
light falls through the huge windows
then they decide to try
love as a kind of heart softener
they are tired and think to try love
THEIR HONEST PURPOSE MOCKED
Or the past? I asked you mean
going back to old diaries
notebooks full of me? no see how
the unusual earth is
wrapped around with forests
fields the raging sea that is
trying to get away from us leaping
leaping falling to the shore
again and again planted with stones
and with land mines that explode
the little legs of little children
I know I have gone too far but
would go further if the poem
were not complete
What a terrible racket they made
beating all those swords into plowshares
people were deafened worldwide letters
of protest as well as serious essays
pointing out in the sensible way
of ordinary people we no longer
use plowshares swords have been
for generations the playthings
of boys and men
now the government that year happened
to be a poet it explained
in a kindly way citizens we had
in mind a living performing metaphor
using familiar religious themes and
literary memories of course once we
get those useless plowshares there
may be a couple of economic or
industrial uses we will even be able
to beat them back into swords should swords
still be required by boys and men
She said
every sentence is an accusation
and I thought
she speaks well
that child has always known what to say about the world
she has a beautiful face a clear head and cosmic notions
My god, I said
you're right that's the way it is
the world speaks to you nowadays
in accusations
it doesn't leave you alone for a minute
it thinks everything is your fault the world is like that
No she said
I wasn't talking about the world
I was talking about you
Yes I said that's it that's just what I meant
Life is as risky
as it is branchy
treetop and twigtip
are only the beginning
then comes the westwind to lean
and the northwind to turn
then the sunshine implores
and up all of us go
we are like any
greengrowing machinery
riding the daylight route
to darkness
BIRTH OF A CHILD
there they go
beginning life
all over again
the world is a cowering
coward of a place
won't stand up
for itself what
do they have in mind
creating hope
w rong anyway
hope was always there
fluttering
its little
pockmarked flag
why
be so grandiose
just do something
now and then
Sometimes now when I sleep alone
I get a whiff of myself
and wonder all these years is this
the odor familiar to you
if so did you really like it doesn't
seem so nice you're unusually non
sweaty for such an active man but slightly
sweet when I hug you nowadays
(or you me) or put my head on your
pillow in our bed I know it's you
a delicate odor of woodsmoke and I breathe
you in a little not surprised
I remember you were always delicious
I MET A SEDUCER
One day a seducer met a seducer
now said one what do we do
fly into each other's arms said
the other ugh said one they turned
stood back to back one
looked over one's shoulder smiled
shyly other turned seconds
too late made a lovelier
shy smile oh my dear said other
my own dear said one
HAVING DINNER
My friend said why are you so up
I mean reality is a terrible down
look at the facts right there in the pasta
you can see it the plausible future boiled
once more in its own gas the end bad luck
for our time bad luck for literature
our dear language back to planet pudding
Yes it is a terrible down they blame it
on that tree that apple of all knowing
I would eat it again he said
AN OCCASIONAL SPEECH AT THE INTERFAITH THANKSGIVING
GATHERING
Anyone who gets to be
eighty years old says thank you
to the One in charge then im-
mediately begins to complain why
were these years such a historical
mess why was my happiness
and willing gratitude interfered with
every single decade no sooner
were the normal spats with parents
lovers children ended than the
interfering greed of total strangers
probably eighty years old as well
and full of their own bloated thank
fulness at unbelievable success in
the expropriation of what belonged
to other people and peoples not
to mention the economic degradation
leading to thanks engendering
profits in our own country and
in the innocent or colluding parts
of the world
I am sadly reminded
of the first couple of our American
thanksgivings thank you thank you
our first Americans together with
the Absolutely First Americans within a gener
ation or half of one the first Americans
proceeded to drive the Absolutely First
Americans from their villages rivers
fields over mountains and across the con
tinent out out they cried almost at
the same time shouting thank you thanks
thank you
IT DOESN'T MATTER IF
It doesn't matter if you were just born
or if you're dying
you have to sleep at night
then you wake up the sun
insists no matter what
you turn even in sleep to light
all day will then furiously begin
your children will require bread
you may have to fight
to obtain it from the greedy owners of grain
who had learned how to grind it into gold
the old ones say there is food for everyone
wealth in the earth but famine lies down
in its old green field blight
in their last sleep the mothers moan
what of the child she must be fed
ah in their ragged shrouds they hid
pocketfuls of ancient seed
inheritance against the coming night
TO THE VERMONT ARTS COUNCIL ON ITS FORTIETH
BIRTHDAY
When I was forty everything
was all right it's true our children
with their ears to the pavement
were about to become that famous
city's generation our neighborhood
noisy with their energetic global
intention then in the very heart
of the prime of my life (as it was
called) the American War in Vietnam
(eight thousand miles away) entered
the newspapers
luckily artists and poets and
musicians were wide awake due to
their peculiar antennae for instance
the poets on trucks in churches had
already heard the voice of Vietnamese
children and the mural makers had seen
even before the photographers the
curious bombs like bouquets called
cluster they painted the story that
the poets and musicians sang
as we say that was then this is now
and we are here to congratulate
the Vermont Arts Council which
had the Vermont sense and aesthetic
energy to be born forty years ago
and finds itself as I did then
in the prime of life with another
American war with an unknown people
thousands of miles away luckily
Vermont the United States and the
Arts Council is deep in poets most
of us with big mouths (it is said) even
the gentlest
the very little girl looked at her grandfather
the way he was sprawled across his big wheelchair
his leg was crooked it was bent the wrong way she
watched his leg for two or three minutes sometimes
it tried to move itself it was interesting she
gave him a Kleenex
then she wanted to see the important room all
the women and men in a half circle of wheelchairs
looking straight at the television some were
all right many were hunched over their heads
were twisted that way they could see the tele
vision better sometimes people walked from
somewhere to someplace else right past the big
television faces only one person yelled out
hey you crazy it was very interesting
on the way back to see her grandfather in
his window corner she stopped a man she'd seen
last week was bobbing his head and waving his
arms and shouting go away and stop it and go
to hell other words very loud no one came
she watched him for about five minutes then he
took a breath he was quiet she saw that he had
finished being interesting bye-bye she said she
waved the man exhausted softly said bye-bye
MY SISTER AND MY GRANDSON
I have been talking to my sister she
may not know she's been dust and ashes
for the last two years I talk to her
nearly every day
I've been telling her about our new baby
who is serious comical busy dark my
sister out of all the rubble and grit
that is now her my sister mutters what
about our old baby he was smart loving
so beautiful
yes yes I said listen just last week
he stopped at my hallway door he saw
your small Turkish rug he stared at it
he fell to his knees his arms wide crying
Jeannie oh my own auntie Jeannie
remembered ah her hard whisper came to me
thank you Grace now speak to him tell him
he's still my deepest love
FIDELITY
After supper I returned to
my reading book I had
reached page one hundred
and forty two hundred and twenty
more to go I had been thinking that
evening as we spoke
early at dinner with a couple of young
people of the dense improbable
life of that book in which I had become so comfortable
the characters were now my troubled companions
I knew them understood I could
reenter these lives without loss
so firm my habitation I scanned the shelves
some books so dear to me I had missed them
leaned forward to take the work into
my hands I took a couple of deep breaths
thought about the acceleration of days
yes I could reenter them but ...
No how could I desert that other whole life
those others in their city basements
Abandonment How could I have allowed myself
even thought of a half hour's distraction
when life had pages or decades to go
so much was about to happen to people
I already know and nearly loved
I INVITED
I invited my mother and father into my dream
which included a table chairs a record player
an early evening hospitality my
friends say that their parents are always present
to pester the night with little pearls of acid advice
my parents are not like that
I wanted to see my mother and father
together They appeared they organized their bodies
slowly they saw each other before they were
aware of me She looked at him my god Zenya
how old you've grown in these forty years she said
also much shorter is it true you never married?
my father was embarrassed he was probably ashamed
to have outlived her by so many years
What could they say? then thank goodness they
remembered their own children
Well of course he said You knew the first little one
at least you gave her some pretty tight hugs
and kissed her from head to toe The other one my son
a good man he worries
about my health he asks me do you have a fever
are you still coughing? he was a doctor too
he lived long
my mother was amazed
my father says why not It's common in this country
even I with a vicious heart attack lived to be eighty-nine
my mother says my god eighty-nine?
all those years did you think of me?
all the time he said at my eightieth birthday I
told everybody I owe everything to you
that was very nice she said reaching out
you were working so hard I didn't think you remembered me
from one day to the next
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Fidelity by Grace Paley. Copyright © 2008 The Estate of Grace Paley. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Proverbs,
Anti-Love Poem,
On Occasion,
Fathers,
why shouldn't men look at women,
I Met a Woman on the Plane,
you can't think without thinking about something,
Then,
freedom has overtaken me,
before I was nobody,
a new york city man is,
Thank God there is no god,
The Hard-Hearted Rich,
Their Honest Purpose Mocked,
What a terrible racket they made,
She said,
Life is as risky,
Birth of a Child,
Sometimes now when I sleep alone,
I Met a Seducer,
Having Dinner,
An Occasional Speech at the Interfaith Thanksgiving Gathering,
It Doesn't Matter If,
To the Vermont Arts Council on Its Fortieth Birthday,
the very little girl looked at her grandfather,
My Sister and My Grandson,
Fidelity,
I Invited,
my lungs,
News,
Who,
Bravery on Tenth Street,
Many,
I needed to talk to my sister,
Suddenly There's Poughkeepsie,
A Cloud Like a Tower,
I Went Out Walking,
some things are not,
Night Morning,
my heart leaps up when I behold,
On the Park Bench,
The Irish Poet,
The Telling,
All the old women came out in the sun,
Detour,
I had thought the tumors,
One Day,
Windows,
Here we are now,
Even,
Sisters,
Mabel,
Education,
Let the Day Go,
This Hill,
Also by Grace Paley,
About the Author,
Copyright,