Poetry. "Paola Corso's poems are tough, edgy, often unsettling--populated with tender sinners and tough-as-nail saints. In her full-length debut, DEATH BY RENAISSANCE, she blends the political with the mythic, family life with social annotations, to create an urgent and compelling collection. Corso's hardships and joys are palpable in each of her poems"--Denise Duhamel. Corso's sympathetic voice evokes post-industrial Pittsburgh with its detritus of old women and boarded-up greengrocers, a Pittsburgh that's missed the high-tech revolution. But unlike an exercise in nostalgia, the poems capture the tastes, sounds and smells of a lively Italian family's work-oriented life, with its joys and sorrows. A welcome addition to working-class literature"--Patricia Dobler. Photographs by George Thomas Mendel.