Payments Due: Onstage Offstage

by Carol Connolly

When I first read Carol Connolly's poetry, I was delighted to find a writer who wrote the way she spoke. Her keen eye for color and detail, curve and line, space and solid, is always present for anyone who has a conversation with her. Add her wonderful humor, especially in a final line, its twist of reality, a spin of irony making life suddenly bearable, and you have Carol's unique view of the world. She's looking through the eyes of a woman in her middle years. As a girl, she was good, trusting, obedient, accepting the roles offered her. As a woman, she began to notice other roles, other possibilities. She found the double standard, the discrimination against women, the violence against women, the pervasive discounting of women, and the powerlessness of women. It is a gift to us that she chose to write her poetry and express her rage as well as her love. Payments Due has been a catalyst for women from every walk of life. It has been passed around in women's groups, read on construction sites, and quoted in courtrooms. In her first edition of this book and in her many readings across the land, Carol's poetry has helped women express their anger and has soothed the pain for women who have felt deserted and betrayed. Carol tells us about her own pain and the pain of many women, and she helps us laugh at ourselves, strengthening us for what's ahead. The transformation of Payments Due into a theatrical presentation has given these poems another dimension for our time of self-discovery and empowerment. The Inner City Cultural Center in Los Angeles has staged a selection of Carol's poems in a multicultural production, and the Lyric Theatre in Minneapolis has mounted its interpretation. The poems performed in these dramatic productions, including a dozen new poems, have been gathered in "Onstage," the first section of this revised edition of Payments Due . Midwest Villages & Voices is grateful to these two theatres for their visionary and supportive work, making visual and audible the written word. And so art and truth and life carry us to deeper understanding and ever more connections.
Rachel Tilsen, Midwest Villages & Voices

Genres: Poetry

89 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1995

About the author

Carol Connolly (neé McLellan) was born in 1934. In addition to her first career raising seven, Connolly has been variously known as a political candidate, activist, journalist, poet, and playwright. She began writing poetry in 1976 by accident, when the fiction class she wanted to take was full. She signed up for a poetry class instead and published her first collection Payments Due, in 1985. In July 2006, she was named Saint Paul's first poet laureate.

Reviews

[Lynne D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. So vert insightful, wise and true to the human condition. Timeless.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carol Connolly is a very cool human being.