SOURCE: A review of Leaning Forward, in Poetry, Vol. CXLVIII, No. 1, April, 1986, pp. 38-9.

In the following review, Shaw offers a positive assessment of Paley's verse in Leaning Forward, but notes that Paley's fiction is more accomplished.

I doubt that Grace Paley’s reputation as a poet will supersede her renown as a writer of short fiction. Still, it is good to have this selection of the poetry she has been writing, as Jane Cooper says in an Afterword, “before, during, and after writing her stories.” Without being momentous, [Leaning Forward] is perky, likable work, recognizably in the Paley voice. Some of the tactics that work well in her stories do not work so well in the more constrained dimensions of verse. Effects of spontaneity, of improvisation, sometimes keep the manner fresh at the expense of the material, and we have what seem like notebook jottings instead of...