From the Publisher: “In Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps, Paola Corso celebrates public stairways in her native Pittsburgh and around the world. Inspired by her Sicilian grandfather, a stonemason who built concrete steps, and her Calabrian grandfather and father, steelworkers who once climbed them to the mill, Corso is a storyteller. She shares memories of her family, the history behind Pittsburgh having more public staircases than any other city in the country, and curiosities about some of the world’s most famous steps. Vertical Bridges includes photos by the author along with archival photos from the University of Pittsburgh Library’s Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection…”
About the Author: “Paola Corso’s books are set in her native Pittsburgh, where her Italian immigrant family members were steel workers, most recently Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps; The Laundress Catches Her Breath, winner of the Tillie Olsen Prize in Creative Writing; Once I Was Told the Air Was Not for Breathing, a Triangle Fire Memorial Association Awardee and Catina’s Haircut: A Novel in Stories. She is cofounder and resident artist of Steppin Stanzas, a grant-awarded poetry and art project celebrating city steps. She splits her time between New York’s grid and Pittsburgh’s grade. More info at paolacorso.com.”
“Under Corso’s nimble juggling of words and images, Pittsburgh’s staircases become a series of paths leading elsewhere-from China to Norway, from Italy back to the Three Rivers again. Together these narratives construct a fascinating ecology of urban spaces, emphasizing the delicate lives and quotidian strength of those who climb up and down: workers, immigrants, children, lovers. In each direction, these poetic flights offer an all-encompassing view.” – LAURA E. RUBERTO, author of Gramsci, Migration, and the Representation of Women’s Work in Italy and the U.S.; co-editor of New Italian Migrations to the United States, Vol. 1 and 2
“I have expressed Pittsburgh’s city steps using maps and photographs. Here Paola Corso has done so with words and style, imagery and feelings. She offers a delightful way to experience the steps, not only in Pittsburgh but around the world.” – BOB REGAN, author of Pittsburgh Steps and Bridges of Pittsburgh
“Pittsburghers will love Paola Corso’s mix of poetry and poetic imagery, from histories of the city’s staircases to stories that unfolded along them over time. It’s good to see the stairways being celebrated, preserved, and loved-in print and in real life.” – BRIAN A. BUTKO, author of Greetings from the Lincoln Highway and editor of Western Pennsylvania History magazine
“In poems contemplative, lyric, hybrid, and explosive, Corso stays true to her working-class roots. Though the altitude is often dizzying, the elevation is well worth it-and the best of poems, like these, always give us a touch of vertigo. This is a remarkably imaginative book, replete with stunning archival photographs and equally stunning photographs by Corso herself. A marvel!” – JOSEPH BATHANTI, author of The Life of the World to Come and East Liberty
Vertical Bridges
My Pittsburgh childhood: the hills where we lived, the river valley where my Southern Italian immigrant family worked in a steel mill, glass plant, and mirror works along the Allegheny.
The river where my friends and I jumped in by swinging on a rope that hung from a tree along the bank.
Where my dad and his siblings were thrown in to learn how to swim or sink.
River that floods.
Where my great uncle as a boy went fishing on high waters one Easter and drowned trying to save his friend.
River polluted.
Bridges to cross.
Then came a day I looked up to the hills and saw what’s between: steps.
Pittsburgh is a triangle, a confluence of rivers, but my geometric view of the city began to take a different shape.
The perpendicular, where horizontal meets vertical. City steps and steps in the city. People climbing them. Sitting on them. Shoveling and painting them.
Steps to admire for their architectural beauty.
Steps my grandfather, a stonemason from Sicily, built. Steps my Calabrian father climbed to and from the steel mill. The more I saw, the more I realized what I had overlooked since childhood, what had come to draw my attention and why.
Steps are vertical bridges, and I want to cross them.
As connections in the landscape.
Connections we make with each other.
That middle ground where we meet.
This excerpt from Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps by Paola Corso is published here courtesy of the author and should not be reproduced without permission.
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