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To Be of Use: Poems
marge piercy proves that modern poetry can be both passionate and perceptive, well-structured and inventive
107 pages, Hardbound
First published January 1, 1973
4 people are currently reading
173 people want to read
About the author
Marge Piercy
113 books924 followersMarge Piercy is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.
Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family deeply affected by the Great Depression. She was the first in her family to attend college, studying at the University of Michigan. Winning a Hopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction (1957) enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France, and her formal schooling ended with an M.A. from Northwestern University. Her first book of poems, Breaking Camp, was published in 1968.
An indifferent student in her early years, Piercy developed a love of books when she came down with rheumatic fever in her mid-childhood and could do little but read. "It taught me that there's a different world there, that there were all these horizons that were quite different from what I could see," she said in a 1984 interview.
As of 2013, she is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one non-fiction book, and one memoir.
Her novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. While Body of Glass (published in the US as He, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, City of Darkness, City of Light is set during the French Revolution. Other of her novels, such as Summer People and The Longings of Women are set during the modern day. All of her books share a focus on women's lives.
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) mixes a time travel story with issues of social justice, feminism, and the treatment of the mentally ill. This novel is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. William Gibson has credited Woman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace of Cyberpunk. Piercy tells this in an introduction to Body of Glass. Body of Glass (He, She and It) (1991) postulates an environmentally ruined world dominated by sprawling mega-cities and a futuristic version of the Internet, through which Piercy weaves elements of Jewish mysticism and the legend of the Golem, although a key story element is the main character's attempts to regain custody of her young son.
Many of Piercy's novels tell their stories from the viewpoints of multiple characters, often including a first-person voice among numerous third-person narratives. Her World War II historical novel, Gone To Soldiers (1987) follows the lives of nine major characters in the United States, Europe and Asia. The first-person account in Gone To Soldiers is the diary of French teenager Jacqueline Levy-Monot, who is also followed in a third-person account after her capture by the Nazis.
Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personal free verse and often addresses the same concern with feminist and social issues. Her work shows commitment to the dream of social change (what she might call, in Judaic terms, tikkun olam, or the repair of the world), rooted in story, the wheel of the Jewish year, and a range of landscapes and settings.
She lives in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband, Ira Wood.
(from Wikipedia)
Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family deeply affected by the Great Depression. She was the first in her family to attend college, studying at the University of Michigan. Winning a Hopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction (1957) enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France, and her formal schooling ended with an M.A. from Northwestern University. Her first book of poems, Breaking Camp, was published in 1968.
An indifferent student in her early years, Piercy developed a love of books when she came down with rheumatic fever in her mid-childhood and could do little but read. "It taught me that there's a different world there, that there were all these horizons that were quite different from what I could see," she said in a 1984 interview.
As of 2013, she is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one non-fiction book, and one memoir.
Her novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. While Body of Glass (published in the US as He, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, City of Darkness, City of Light is set during the French Revolution. Other of her novels, such as Summer People and The Longings of Women are set during the modern day. All of her books share a focus on women's lives.
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) mixes a time travel story with issues of social justice, feminism, and the treatment of the mentally ill. This novel is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. William Gibson has credited Woman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace of Cyberpunk. Piercy tells this in an introduction to Body of Glass. Body of Glass (He, She and It) (1991) postulates an environmentally ruined world dominated by sprawling mega-cities and a futuristic version of the Internet, through which Piercy weaves elements of Jewish mysticism and the legend of the Golem, although a key story element is the main character's attempts to regain custody of her young son.
Many of Piercy's novels tell their stories from the viewpoints of multiple characters, often including a first-person voice among numerous third-person narratives. Her World War II historical novel, Gone To Soldiers (1987) follows the lives of nine major characters in the United States, Europe and Asia. The first-person account in Gone To Soldiers is the diary of French teenager Jacqueline Levy-Monot, who is also followed in a third-person account after her capture by the Nazis.
Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personal free verse and often addresses the same concern with feminist and social issues. Her work shows commitment to the dream of social change (what she might call, in Judaic terms, tikkun olam, or the repair of the world), rooted in story, the wheel of the Jewish year, and a range of landscapes and settings.
She lives in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband, Ira Wood.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 14, 2018
Beautiful and meaningful!
"But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. "
"But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. "
November 6, 2015
While "Barbie Doll" is probably the most memorable of the poems in this anthology, there are others that evoke Piercy's contribution to the feminist canon. I opened this anthology knowing only that "Barbie Doll" debuted in it. When I closed the anthology, I was completely in love with one of Piercy's longer poems, "Doing it differently," in which a healthy relationship is depicted in eight sections. This relationship is real; both people have real emotions, messy ones at that. I recommend this anthology to lovers of feminist poetry, especially the kind that is blunt and angry.
July 27, 2021
People who have read my reviews probably tire of my tribute to my mother, without whom I probably never would have been able to get my hands on this book. After she passed I rescued these books from destruction - as my father had plans to throw them all away.
I earmarked 8 poems for later reference. If you seek them out individually their titles are:
Song of the f****d duck
Just anger
Burying blues for Janis
The best defense is offensive
Bridging
(and three of the Tarot reading poems).
(Especially "The Nine of Cups")
A number of the poems forced me to confront myself in an uncomfortable way because I could see aspects of my chauvinism pointed out and directed back at me. This is one of the reasons I liked this book. It challenged me and my behaviors - past and present - and made me think of ways I need to confront myself.
I welcomed the political nature of the poetry she presents because it is a record of the efforts to hold the corporate powers accountable. As early as the 1970s people like Ms. Piercy were warning people about the ongoing environmental degradation, exploitation of workers and many other social ills.
This work, however, is a two-fold tragedy. First, that nothing has really changed for the better - in many ways we are worse off than when she wrote these poems. Second, that there really seems to be no way to sustain progressive protest against capitalist corruption (I know, redundant). The enemy has all the resources to squash even the most minute voice of dissent.
Still, for an historical view into the past, written with passion and a voice for the oppressed, this is a tremendous collection.
Here is an excerpt from the poem "The Eight of Swords"
"Despair is the worst betrayal, the coldest seduction:
to believe at last that the enemy will prevail.
Hush, the heart's drum, my life, my breath.
There is finally a bone in the heart that does not break
When we remember we are still part of each other,
the muscle of hope that goes on in the dark
pumping the blood that feeds us."
If you can get your hands on it I recommend it.
I earmarked 8 poems for later reference. If you seek them out individually their titles are:
Song of the f****d duck
Just anger
Burying blues for Janis
The best defense is offensive
Bridging
(and three of the Tarot reading poems).
(Especially "The Nine of Cups")
A number of the poems forced me to confront myself in an uncomfortable way because I could see aspects of my chauvinism pointed out and directed back at me. This is one of the reasons I liked this book. It challenged me and my behaviors - past and present - and made me think of ways I need to confront myself.
I welcomed the political nature of the poetry she presents because it is a record of the efforts to hold the corporate powers accountable. As early as the 1970s people like Ms. Piercy were warning people about the ongoing environmental degradation, exploitation of workers and many other social ills.
This work, however, is a two-fold tragedy. First, that nothing has really changed for the better - in many ways we are worse off than when she wrote these poems. Second, that there really seems to be no way to sustain progressive protest against capitalist corruption (I know, redundant). The enemy has all the resources to squash even the most minute voice of dissent.
Still, for an historical view into the past, written with passion and a voice for the oppressed, this is a tremendous collection.
Here is an excerpt from the poem "The Eight of Swords"
"Despair is the worst betrayal, the coldest seduction:
to believe at last that the enemy will prevail.
Hush, the heart's drum, my life, my breath.
There is finally a bone in the heart that does not break
When we remember we are still part of each other,
the muscle of hope that goes on in the dark
pumping the blood that feeds us."
If you can get your hands on it I recommend it.
July 7, 2017
Strong, beautiful writing. " ...to all the women who are unlearning not to speak and growing through listening to each other"
Read
March 19, 2020Excellent!
March 25, 2021
I want to leave the most glowing review but I’m speechless
July 13, 2021
This poetry is beautiful and just as relevant today as it was the days she wrote it.
I loved her use of food and nature in her writing.
Also she’s super sassy!
I loved her use of food and nature in her writing.
Also she’s super sassy!
August 30, 2011
Not familiar with too much poetry, but my first impression is that wow, Marge Piercy is so different from Mary Oliver. Other first impressions: This book seems very dated to me. I get the strong feeling of the "us" versus "them" polarized tone of late 60's militant revolutionaries. But it was a very polarized time. To me, she seems to sometimes objectify the people she is fighting against and that's where she loses me. Also, sometimes seems to be caught up in cleverness of her own writing. But I like it at certain points where she can write bluntly and forcefully.
January 4, 2011
I met Marge Piercy years ago at a writer's conference at Indiana University. I remember that at the reception afterwards she stayed in the hallway because she was allergic to cigarette smoke - not a problem she'd have today. I always mark favorites in my books of poetry and anthologies. This book by Piercy has asterisks beside dozens of her poems. Am going to read again and see if I still feel the same way.
November 4, 2011
I really enjoyed the first half of this book. Marge Piercy has a lot of beautiful imagery. The second half became super political, in a sort of beat you over the head with a copy of "Das Kapital" way, and the imagery wasn't as effective. Kind of made me roll my eyes at the end. I like the idea of the last section, the tarot card format, but the end result was lacking.
March 7, 2009
Piercy's words feel like short, powerful jabs to activate the soul to act...to live...to be a part of the Movement. Many times her words made me feel like I was at a protest or a march and she was speaking to me and many others in the crowd with a megaphone.
November 17, 2009
Piercy is a novelist and poet, although I'm more familiar with her poetry and agree with the Time Magazine reviewer who writes that "...Piercy proves that modern poetry can be both passionate and perceptive, well-structured and inventive."
October 23, 2010
More in-your-face political than the earth-mama 'The Moon is Always Female', I particularly liked the last cycle of 11 poems, grouped as a tarot reading. As always, searing, empowering lines from/for a woman: "Most nights alone or alone with men/who wiped themselves in you." Powerful stuff.
July 3, 2013
There are some really amazing poems in this book. It's feminism (and a lot of other (awesome) ideologies) from a different time but rings very true and is necessary and important today. I'll use some of this in church, I hope.
April 18, 2008
This is one of my favorite poems....EVER....
October 6, 2010
One of my all time favorite books of poetry. Clear, accessible, concise, absolutely biting social commentary at times, every word has power.
November 19, 2015
HOLY SHIT
July 12, 2022
Found this gem in a neighborhood library box! Loved the eco-feminism message along with the tarot poems.
March 10, 2009
Wonderful!
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews