Marge Piercy

Biography:

  • She was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1936.
    • Her working-class family was hit hard during the Great Depression.
  • She was the first in her family to attend college. She had won a scholarship to the University of Michigan.
  • In the 1960’s, Marge Piercy was an organizer in political movements.
    • The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
    • The movement against the war in Vietnam
  • Marge Piercy was extremely involved with acts of feminism, Marxism, and environmental thought.
    • These viewpoints affected her writings. Her novels addressed social concerns with feminist viewpoints.
  • She has published close to 20 poetry books and novels. As well, she has written plays, non-fiction, a memoir. Occasionally, she works as a poetry editor, and partnered with Tikkun Magazine.
  • In 1971, Marge Piercy moved to Cape Cod with her husband. Her and her husband created the company Leapfrog Press.
  • Marge Piercy credits her mother for making her a poet.
    • Her mother, described as an emotional, imaginative woman, encouraged her daughter to read daily.
    • She wanted Marge to observe sharply and remember whatever she observed.
  • As she grew older and increasingly independent, Marge didn’t fit the image that women were supposed to have.
    • By being a divorcee at 23, poor, and working part-time, she was deemed a failure by society.
  • Her values, views, and image affected her work as an author greatly. She failed to publish her novels for many years.
  • Throughout this difficult period, Marge felt as if she was invisible.

 

Writing Pieces:

Novels

Going Down Fast, 1969

Dance The Eagle To Sleep, 1970    

Small Changes, 1973

Woman on the Edge of Time, 1976

The High Cost of Living, 1978

Vida, 1980

Braided Lives, 1982

Fly Away Home, 1985

Gone To Soldiers, 1988

Summer People, 1989

He, She And It (aka Body of Glass), 1991

The Longings of Women, 1994

City of Darkness, City of Light, 1996

Storm Tide, 1998 (with Ira Wood)

Three Women, 1999

The Third Child, 2003

Sex Wars, 2005

Short Stories

The Cost of Lunch, Etc., 2014

Poetry

Breaking Camp, 1968

Hard Loving, 1969

Barbie Doll“, 1973

4-Telling ( with Emmett Jarrett, Dick Lourie, Robert Hershon), 1971

To Be of Use, 1973

Living in the Open, 1976

The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing, 1978

The Moon is Always Female, 1980

Circles on the Water, Selected Poems, 1982Stone,

Paper, Knife, 1983

My Mother’s Body, 1985

Available Light, 1988

Early Ripening: American Women’s Poetry Now (ed.), 1988; 1993

Mars and her Children, 1992

What are Big Girls Made Of, 1997

Early Grrrl, 1999.

The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems With a Jewish Theme, 1999

Colours Passing Through Us, 2003

The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems, 1980-2010, 2012

Made in Detroit, 2015

 

 

Awards:

  • Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction, 1993 (He, She and It)
  • Bradley Award, New England Poetry Club, 1992
  • Brit ha-Dorot Award, Shalom Center, 1992
  • May Sarton Award, New England Poetry Club, 1991
  • Golden Rose Poetry Prize, New England Poetry Club, 1990
  • Carolyn Kizer Poetry Prize, 1986, 1990
  • National Endowment for the Arts award, 1978
  • Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2004

 

 

Writing Tips:

There is a poem that she wrote that displayed her writing tips which were basically never give up on it even if the rest of  society is against you and write as much as you can. This is the poem:

 

For the Young Who Want To
BY MARGE PIERCY

 

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

 

 

Writing Styles:

In her writing, she deals with feminism and deals with social concerns through her writing. She also speaks grandly about body image. In her poem “Barbie Doll” she has a strong theme of feminism. She also deals with the issue about the ‘ideal’ female body type. Majority of her poems are written in free verse (verse having irregular meter, or rhythm that is not metrical), and her poems are often parable (short narratives with a moral).

 

 

Quote:

Mornings were chilly, frost on windows

etching magic landscapes. I liked

to stand over the hot air registers

the warmth blowing up my skirts.

But the basement scared me at night.

 

 

Analysis:

  • Lots of imagery “etching magic landscapes”
  • Last sentence seemed a little out of place
  • Overall tone turned darker and darker —-> The fist word of the poem is “morning” which is bright and sunny and the last word of the poem is “night” which is dark so even the words mirrored the tone of the poem
  • Free verse poem
  • Not as much punctuation as other poems may have

 

 

Emulation of Quote:

Nights were shadows creeping their foreboding fingers up my spine. I liked to pretend I was somewhere else, somewhere where the light made the red roses shine and glow. But that never lasted long. So, I looked to the moon and the billions of twinkling fireflies sewn into the blue black ink of the swirling sky and smiled until the night hugged me to sleep and the morning poured onto my face.

 

 

Final Thoughts:

After reading her poems I really enjoyed reading the imagery intertwined in her writing so I really appreciated the words of poetry more. I read a bunch of her other poems but my favourite were “Colours Passing Through Us,” and “To Be of Use.”

 

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