Crossing the Street to Paradis - Paperback

From the award-winning poet and memoirist Myra Shapiro comes a luminous new collection that traverses love and loss, age and vitality, New York streets and Southern roots. Crossing the Street to Paradis is a vibrant tapestry of poems that embrace a life lived deeply-fiercely-and still unfolding.

Through moments as intimate as sipping ginger tea with John Donne or remembering the weight of a daughter's curls, Shapiro turns the ordinary into the mythic. She writes of marriage and motherhood, pandemics and Passovers, rooftop gardens and subway benches, each line shimmering with wit, resilience, and grace.

In her 90s and still singing, Shapiro speaks to what it means to endure, to remember, to gather stones from Ireland and words from childhood, and to find, in the face of grief and global tumult, the enduring power of poetry.

Perfect for fans of Mary Oliver, Sharon Olds, and Billy Collins, this collection is a triumphant meditation on tenderness, resistance, and the joy of still being here.

Buy this book. Call your bookstore and buy all her other books. When you get to know Myra you will have a new friend. You might get asked out to a poker game. I love Myra Shapiro, and that she agreed to be born and write these poems.

Her poems are messages from the other world--that is as close as the flashlights in the drawer.

Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi