Harrison native's book encourages readers to climb to new heights - TribLIVE

senewsberita.blogspot.com

What people are saying about Corso's book:
"Under Corso's nimble juggling of words and images, staircases become the soul of a city, and 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, Berkeley City College
"Corso's unforgettable steps are the slow climb to Heaven. Vertical Bridges is a remarkably imaginative book — replete with stunning archival photographs, and equally stunning photographs by Corso herself. A marvel!"
— Joseph Bathanti, North Carolina Poet Laureate (2012-14) and author of "East Liberty"
"Pittsburghers will love Corso's mix of poetry and poetic imagery in Vertical Bridges, 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, Heinz History Center, award-winning author of books on popular history
"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

Paola Corso recalled a walk through her late father’s neighborhood in Brackenridge.

“Luckily, it was windy that day, and I spotted a pair of concrete steps under some leaves,” said Corso, a poet, photographer, literary activist and Harrison native. “I thought about the days my father and grandfather walked those steps.”

She wrote a poem about the journeys Mariano Corso and his father, Anthony Corso, took on those slabs of concrete to and from what was then known as Allegheny Ludlum’s Brackenridge Works.

The work begins “Snapshot of my father as a young man standing at the top of hillside steps wearing a double-breasted suit and tie, pants creased, shoes polished, his back to the steel mill in the valley behind him, his back to the jackhammer he used to drill. …”

Those steps and that poem became the foundation for Corso’s book, “Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps.”

The 127-page writing is available on Amazon.

Courtesy of Paola Corso

“Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps.” To see what people are saying about the book, visit TribLIVE.com.

Corso wrote the poems and took most of the photos. She incorporated pictures from The University of Pittsburgh archives. She has studied steps all over the world, and her poems in the book represent steps all over the globe.

Sets of steps are more than concrete blocks or wooden slats to Corso.

They mirror our lives, said Corso, the author of seven poetry and fiction books set in Pittsburgh, where her Southern Italian immigrant family worked in the steel mills.

“City steps are vertical bridges, and I want to cross them,” Corso said. “As connections in the landscape, connections we make with each other. That middle ground where we meet.”

Corso, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., makes trips home to visit family and friends, especially her 90-year-old mother, Vincenza “Vinnie” Corso. The Tarentum native lives in the Concordia at Cabot personal care home.

Steps allow people to explore their lives as they continue to climb, Corso said. The landings they reach as they make their way up or down are opportunities to pause.

“You don’t want to stand still on a landing,” she said. “You want to reach new heights.”

If staircases are broken and unsafe, she doesn’t want people to forget their stories.

“When you see a ‘No Trespassing’ sign, think about the history of those steps,” said Corso, a former reporter for the Valley News Dispatch. “Think of the people in the moccasins, shoes, boots, and heels who took those steps.”

Corso said she has always been fascinated with steps. Her maternal grandfather, Antonio Calderone, was a stone mason. She brought her sons, Giona and Mario, to a step cleanup in Pittsburgh.

She wants them to “look up from the bottom of a set of steps and see possibilities of what lies above.”

“I want to tell the story of the ups and downs of life,” said Corso. “Western Pennsylvania is the perfect place because it has such dramatic terrain. We are all climbing steps in our lives, physically and metaphorically.”

Corso is co-founder of “Steppin Stanzas,” with Andrew Edwards, a multilingual poet. It’s a grant-awarded poetry and art project celebrating city steps launched in 2016.

Pittsburgh’s hills and nearly 750 public stairways are its most defining characteristics, Corso said. Steppin Stanzas events take place on city steps.

Corso is scheduled to exhibit her pictures and do a poetry reading at the Oakmont Carnegie Library in Oakmont in July.

“Pittsburgh has so many public stairways — more than any other city in the country,” she said. “ Steps to admire for their architectural beauty. Steps my grandfather, a stone mason from Sicily, built. Steps my Calabrian father climbed to and from the steel mill.”

Courtesy of Paola Corso

Anthony Corso (second from left) gets into a Cadillac surrounded by his sons Frank, Mariano, Domenic and Angelo who picked up their father in style on his last day working for 47 years as a crane operator for Allegheny Ludlum Brackenridge Works

Corso said her family name means “course” in Italian. She said her grandfather followed that same “course” to work every day on those steps, except one. He retired in 1960 after 47 years as a crane operator for Allegheny Ludlum’s Brackenridge Works.

“He was driven home in style,” she said. “My father and his brothers picked up my grandfather in a Cadillac. He wasn’t going to take the steps home that one last time because that journey was complete.”

JoAnne Klimovich Harrop is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact JoAnne at 724-853-5062, jharrop@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Categories: Books | Lifestyles | Local | Pittsburgh | Valley News Dispatch