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Circles on the Water: Selected Poems
More than 150 poems from her seven books of poetry written between 1963 and 1982.
299 pages, Paperback
First published May 12, 1982
21 people are currently reading
224 people want to read
About the author
Marge Piercy
113 books926 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 - 14 of 14 reviews
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September 14, 2025❤️
A real behemoth of poetry!
Volumes Ranked by # of standouts:
1. The Moon is Always Female
2. The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing
3. Breaking Camp
4. To Be of Use
5. 7 New Poems
6. Hard Loving
7. Living in the Open
8. 4-Telling
- From "Athena in the Frontlines:"
"Making is an act, but survival
is luck, caught in history
like a moth trapped in the subway.
There is nothing to do but make well,
finish, and let go. Words
live, words die
in the mouths of everybody." (208)
- From "In the Wet"
"That is what loving is, I say,
it is not pain, it is not
pleasure, it is not compulsion
or fantasy. It is only a way
of living, wide open." (219)
A real behemoth of poetry!
Volumes Ranked by # of standouts:
1. The Moon is Always Female
2. The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing
3. Breaking Camp
4. To Be of Use
5. 7 New Poems
6. Hard Loving
7. Living in the Open
8. 4-Telling
- From "Athena in the Frontlines:"
"Making is an act, but survival
is luck, caught in history
like a moth trapped in the subway.
There is nothing to do but make well,
finish, and let go. Words
live, words die
in the mouths of everybody." (208)
- From "In the Wet"
"That is what loving is, I say,
it is not pain, it is not
pleasure, it is not compulsion
or fantasy. It is only a way
of living, wide open." (219)
March 19, 2024
If I could have given half stars it would have been 3.5. I think I prefer her later work. When I loved a poem I loved it. But many weren’t my style. I found myself liking more toward the end of this collection which are from her later work.
January 18, 2020
4.7 stars
Favorite feminist poet.
"Barbie Doll"
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
Favorite feminist poet.
"Barbie Doll"
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
May 4, 2021
These are selected poems from her earlier works--she has written quite a few. "To Be of Use" is very well represented, which is just as well, as it is out of print, and it is almost impossible to get a copy. I have one. All the poems in "Laying Down the Tower," a tarot sequence which differs slightly from the
Motherpeacee cards I am familiar with, are represented, but without the wood carving drawings which make them so idiosyncratic. Marge Piercy is a fine poet and novelist. You should check her out if you are not familiar with her. A lot of her stuff is political but she is a fine craftswoman and she does not write free verse, it is more like Shakespearean blank verse or Browning, I suppose. Not like Adrienne Rich but more like Rich's wife Audre Lorde.
Motherpeacee cards I am familiar with, are represented, but without the wood carving drawings which make them so idiosyncratic. Marge Piercy is a fine poet and novelist. You should check her out if you are not familiar with her. A lot of her stuff is political but she is a fine craftswoman and she does not write free verse, it is more like Shakespearean blank verse or Browning, I suppose. Not like Adrienne Rich but more like Rich's wife Audre Lorde.
November 9, 2013
Marge Piercy's Tarot poems are some of my favorites. I also admire her love poems. (I might argue that all poets should be judged on their love poems--the heart of their verse.) Much of her work examines gender and leftist politics, and sometimes she uses amazing Plath-like metaphors. I didn't love every poem, but I liked most and loved quite a few.
February 13, 2018
Large parts of this collection constitute a trip into the stridently feminist world of the 60's and 70's through poems selected from 7 of Piercy's previously published books. I was cruising along through the first 4 sections, finding the work mildly interesting, the language pithy and her focus one-dimensional. But then I hit on "Living in the Open" and it blew me away; a valetiction on the nature and power of friendship. From that point onward, many of the poems began to open up whole new insights into Piercy's persona, notably her sensuous, passionate relationship with her part of the earth. And by that I mean the very soil, gardens,wild creatures, cats, woodlands, marshes that she loves so deeply. Her anger at the corporate world and the expolitation of women never diminishes, but she brings to the table a full-course meal of life exoeriences: devotion, betrayal, libido, illness, loss, even raucous humor that was notably absent in the earlier sections.
September 25, 2022
The selected poems in this collection are presented in groupings based on what books they were published in, starting with the first book published in 1968. The back of the book notes the year that each poem was written in, ranging from 1961 (although one was started in 1952) to 1981.
Through Piercy’s two decades of poetry, a reader can sense who she is as witness to her own relationships and the way she speaks to contextual questions of existence influenced by environment, society and politics. I admire her tenacity and diction. I admire and appreciate these poems in their ability to convey the tricky nature of being a women. They are candid and critical, and surprising. A powerful read overall.
Through Piercy’s two decades of poetry, a reader can sense who she is as witness to her own relationships and the way she speaks to contextual questions of existence influenced by environment, society and politics. I admire her tenacity and diction. I admire and appreciate these poems in their ability to convey the tricky nature of being a women. They are candid and critical, and surprising. A powerful read overall.
March 28, 2025
Marvelous. Rereading after 30 years. Like bumping into an old friend and finding you still have loads incommunicado. Although now I prefer the cat poems to the political ones.
April 18, 2016
What I liked most about this collection is Piercy's introduction. That let me see into her editing process since this collection is mostly old poems. I find this particularly fascinating as a fellow poet because it lets me understand her creative process a bit more. Very few of her old poems are radically different, and she explains why that is. I appreciate that since I'm going to be writing about her very soon. Also, having read so many of her collections and being very familiar with her poetry, I was disappointed to see many of my favorites missing. It was like she read my mind, because in the introduction, she explained briefly her process for selecting the poems and lamented that some of her favorites are not in this collection either.
The new poetry isn't exactly new to me because these poems appear in later collections by Piercy, but I think one or two of them don't, so that makes this collection valuable to me.
The new poetry isn't exactly new to me because these poems appear in later collections by Piercy, but I think one or two of them don't, so that makes this collection valuable to me.
September 17, 2007
This book contains many amazing poems... some about politics, some about squash. I prefer her more political work. Many of her poems center sexism, a critque of capitalism, and a discussion of activism.
Her poems are very emotionally raw and at times depression, but they can serve as great tools for healing and education on the issues. My favorite poem of hers is "Rape Poem" which captures the pain of such a violent assault:
"There is no difference between being raped
and being run over by a truck
except that afterward men ask if you enjoyed it."
Her poems are very emotionally raw and at times depression, but they can serve as great tools for healing and education on the issues. My favorite poem of hers is "Rape Poem" which captures the pain of such a violent assault:
"There is no difference between being raped
and being run over by a truck
except that afterward men ask if you enjoyed it."
May 19, 2011
The quintessential Marge Piercy. Great stuff, especially for those of us who can relate to leading the activist/poet lifestyle, and often don't care for the artistic pretension of certain writers who attempted to address "issues," but never actually put themselves out there on the street with the rest of us.
October 21, 2008
Some of my favorite poetry is Marge Piercy's, and some of it doesn't speak to me at all. This collection of several of her smaller books of poetry is one of the most-loved, dog-eared, bookmarked volumes on my shelves.
November 3, 2017
This book is soul food to me. Certain pages are dog eared, highlighted, circled, underlined. Certain passages stick with me and come to me often. Her work is so deeply touching and beautiful and real.
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August 17, 2009Re-reading Marge Piiercy for her vision and subject matter,
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews