Fidelity by Grace PaleyFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008

I like Grace Paley’s poems, how conversational they are, and how the best ones are full of a strong voice, or a sense of place. I like the way her New York poems, like the one on page 15, which begins “a new york city man is,” are perfectly observed city-moments, this one a man smiling at a fireman as the poem’s narrator sits in a cab stuck in traffic, smiling at the man, or “Bravery on Tenth Street,” about an elderly couple slowly making their way down the sidewalk. I like the wry sweetness and tenderness of her love poems, like the one on page 29, which ends “I remember you were always delicious.” “Suddenly there’s Poughkeepsie” is perhaps my favorite poem in the book, the motion of it, the delight; “my heart leaps up when I behold,” (a tribute to Wordsworth’s poetics & joy) is a close second, for the same reasons, a similar groundedness in place, though in this one it’s Vermont, not New York. Much of this book is about age, aging, the approach of death: one poem talks about parents growing older, “furiously saying goodbye,” and there’s something of that here, though with more gentleness (p. 72).