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The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing: Poems
A record in verse of one year integrates the political, intellectual, and emotional aspects of the poet's experiences
- GenresPoetry
130 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1978
3 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
About the author
Marge Piercy
108 books928 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 - 6 of 6 reviews
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November 25, 2022The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing
By Marge Piercy
I inherited this book from my late mother. I really enjoyed this collection. I will share some of the titles of various poems from this book that caught my attention in particular.
The market economy (p. 42)
The window of the woman burning (p. 52)
Women of letters (p. 54)
For Shoshana - Pat Swinton (p. 84)
Athena in the front lines (p. 99)
What looks back (p. 107)
If they come in the night (p. 113)
Sutter’s Gold and the rainbow’s end (p. 119)
Beauty I would suffer for (p. 124)
Sharing a stanza from “Sutter’s Gold and the rainbow’s end” here:
“I may feel guilty after a poem
for what is revealed, for what
stands bare when the speaking stops,
for what utters itself with full wings spread
of angel or bat
but I am healed to the saying.
I think it must be.”
This stanza struck me because when I write poetry I have these same feelings. This was relatable to me.
An excerpt from the poem “What looks back” shared here:
“The mirror is a pit
more caustic than lye.
Its calculating scan
prices the flesh.
Only the young smile at it.
To them it makes glass promises
on which to cut the fingers and the throat.
On its pale slate damage
is figured, the erosion
of pain, the cost of laughter.”
As a hearty sexagenarian, this stanza really struck me.
A final stanza I want to share is excerpted from “Women of letters.”
“Stop writing letters! Stop! We will
Come together instead. Each three
will prove that the fourth exists,
will listen, will look, that gift
of open eyes and ears greater than charity.
Let the letters mate like flounder
in secret bags and their roe ferment.
It is each other only
who can save us with gentle attention
and make us whole.”
I read this and thought about how true it is.
I hope these three excerpts entice you to pursue some more of Marge Piercy’s work.
By Marge Piercy
I inherited this book from my late mother. I really enjoyed this collection. I will share some of the titles of various poems from this book that caught my attention in particular.
The market economy (p. 42)
The window of the woman burning (p. 52)
Women of letters (p. 54)
For Shoshana - Pat Swinton (p. 84)
Athena in the front lines (p. 99)
What looks back (p. 107)
If they come in the night (p. 113)
Sutter’s Gold and the rainbow’s end (p. 119)
Beauty I would suffer for (p. 124)
Sharing a stanza from “Sutter’s Gold and the rainbow’s end” here:
“I may feel guilty after a poem
for what is revealed, for what
stands bare when the speaking stops,
for what utters itself with full wings spread
of angel or bat
but I am healed to the saying.
I think it must be.”
This stanza struck me because when I write poetry I have these same feelings. This was relatable to me.
An excerpt from the poem “What looks back” shared here:
“The mirror is a pit
more caustic than lye.
Its calculating scan
prices the flesh.
Only the young smile at it.
To them it makes glass promises
on which to cut the fingers and the throat.
On its pale slate damage
is figured, the erosion
of pain, the cost of laughter.”
As a hearty sexagenarian, this stanza really struck me.
A final stanza I want to share is excerpted from “Women of letters.”
“Stop writing letters! Stop! We will
Come together instead. Each three
will prove that the fourth exists,
will listen, will look, that gift
of open eyes and ears greater than charity.
Let the letters mate like flounder
in secret bags and their roe ferment.
It is each other only
who can save us with gentle attention
and make us whole.”
I read this and thought about how true it is.
I hope these three excerpts entice you to pursue some more of Marge Piercy’s work.
April 29, 2025
I love Marge Piercy. She is my favorite poet.
This poem in particular struck me; written in 1978 and still resonant and timely today.
If They Come In The Night
Long ago on a night of danger and vigil
a friend said, why are you happy?
He explained (we lay together
on a cold hard floor) what prison
meant because he had done
time, and I talked of the death
of friends. Why are you happy
then, he asked, close to
angry.
I said, I like my life. If I
have to give it back, if they
take it from me, let me
not feel I wasted any, let me
not feel I forgot to love anyone
I meant to love, that I forgot
to give what I held in my hands,
that I forgot to do some little
piece of the work that wanted
to come through.
Sun and moonshine, starshine,
the muted light off the waters
of the bay at night, the white
light of the fog stealing in,
the first spears of morning
touching a face
I love. We all lose
everything. We lose
ourselves. We are lost.
Only what we manage to do
lasts, what love sculpts from us;
but what I count, my rubies, my
children, are those moments
wide open when I know clearly
who I am, who you are, what we
do, a marigold, an oakleaf, a meteor,
with all my senses hungry and filled
at once like a pitcher with light.
This poem in particular struck me; written in 1978 and still resonant and timely today.
If They Come In The Night
Long ago on a night of danger and vigil
a friend said, why are you happy?
He explained (we lay together
on a cold hard floor) what prison
meant because he had done
time, and I talked of the death
of friends. Why are you happy
then, he asked, close to
angry.
I said, I like my life. If I
have to give it back, if they
take it from me, let me
not feel I wasted any, let me
not feel I forgot to love anyone
I meant to love, that I forgot
to give what I held in my hands,
that I forgot to do some little
piece of the work that wanted
to come through.
Sun and moonshine, starshine,
the muted light off the waters
of the bay at night, the white
light of the fog stealing in,
the first spears of morning
touching a face
I love. We all lose
everything. We lose
ourselves. We are lost.
Only what we manage to do
lasts, what love sculpts from us;
but what I count, my rubies, my
children, are those moments
wide open when I know clearly
who I am, who you are, what we
do, a marigold, an oakleaf, a meteor,
with all my senses hungry and filled
at once like a pitcher with light.
February 20, 2009
This collection has some of Piercy's best poems in it.
November 2, 2022
I was not moved or even involved with most of the poems in this collection, but there were a half-dozen I liked quite a bit and then the book closed with another half-dozen that I thought were very strong, leaving a more favorable impression the book perhaps deserves.
September 22, 2024
beautiful collection of poetry that centers womanhood and nature, while also discussing so artfully the impact of the war that she witnessed. stunning poems that I will return to again and again.
April 11, 2016
There were some interesting poems in this one. I like how it was divided into seasons and each season's section reflected the emotions related to that season.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews