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Stone, Paper, Knife
Poems describe the breakup of a relationship, grief, marriage, human commitment, the seasons, and the elements of nature
- GenresPoetry
144 pages, Paperback
Published March 12, 1983
3 people are currently reading
150 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 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 10, 2013
I love this beyond all reason. Piercy is lyrical, visceral, and moody. The book is divided into four sections; the first recounts the aftermath of a long relationship, the second widens the scope to world events (though it continues the dark tone. And the issues Piercy touches on will be familiar to current readers, although she wrote these almost 40 years ago), the third evokes a new love built in the ashy wisdom of lost relationships, and the final section--while acknowledging the shadows in the world--ends on a note of hope:
Who can bear hope
back into the world but us, my other
flesh, all of us who have seen the face
of hope at least once in vision, in dream,
in marching, who sang hope into rising
like a conjured snake, who found its flower
above timberline by a melting glacier.
Hope sleeps in our bones like a bear
waiting for spring to rise and walk.
Who can bear hope
back into the world but us, my other
flesh, all of us who have seen the face
of hope at least once in vision, in dream,
in marching, who sang hope into rising
like a conjured snake, who found its flower
above timberline by a melting glacier.
Hope sleeps in our bones like a bear
waiting for spring to rise and walk.
August 28, 2017
"I was seeking money/ and fleeing money/ like a storm I could outrun."
"Love dies like a poisoned/cat vomiting."
"At two a.m. I become Sylvia/ Plath; at three a.m. I turn/ into Anne Sexton; at four/ a.m. I turn into my mother."
"I am the wanting/ this body grows around."
Some amazing lines found in this confessional collection. The work, easy to enter & inhabit, is clearly Piercy creating an inventory of reflection and wisdom about life, through close examination of her own. Much of the writing seeks to tie the reflective reader to nature, personal happenings, and the larger...the political. I found this 1983 work to be screaming from the past telling us how and where we are going astray..."The great contrary project/ is to dry up the world by fire and turn/ survivors into machines for making money."
"Love dies like a poisoned/cat vomiting."
"At two a.m. I become Sylvia/ Plath; at three a.m. I turn/ into Anne Sexton; at four/ a.m. I turn into my mother."
"I am the wanting/ this body grows around."
Some amazing lines found in this confessional collection. The work, easy to enter & inhabit, is clearly Piercy creating an inventory of reflection and wisdom about life, through close examination of her own. Much of the writing seeks to tie the reflective reader to nature, personal happenings, and the larger...the political. I found this 1983 work to be screaming from the past telling us how and where we are going astray..."The great contrary project/ is to dry up the world by fire and turn/ survivors into machines for making money."
January 25, 2020
I absolutely love Piercy's poetry. There were some poems in this book that just absolutely blew me away. However, the book as a whole is less for me than some of her other books. Her best for me (from what I have read so far) is THE MOON IS ALWAYS FEMALE. Stone, Paper, Knife was a beautiful, gut-wrenching poem, and I can see why it is also the book title. Other poems were just as beautiful. A few seemed to prattle on for me. Either way, I will always recommend reading Piercy's poetry.
January 2, 2021
I really liked these poems. My favorites were the ones about the women's movement of the 1970s; her divorce; capitalism; nature and gardening.
I went to her website to learn about her. She's 84! And still writing, still running poetry workshops. I am glad she's still here, speaking truth to power.
I went to her website to learn about her. She's 84! And still writing, still running poetry workshops. I am glad she's still here, speaking truth to power.
February 1, 2016
I thought this collection of poems was outstanding. Piercy's poetic voice seems many light-years from her novelistic one. But the poems are not better or worse, just utterly different in tone and imagery.
April 13, 2016
Great attention to women's issues, even engaging the housewife population through her poems on marriage. There's also a very interesting environmental arc through this collection that, while unrelated to my study of her feminism, is still important to note.
June 26, 2009
Piercy is spot on at expressing all the aspects and emotions of a failed marriage. I did not read all poems and would like to spend more time with this book.
September 27, 2020
Yeah, Marge is definitely a new fave.
November 21, 2020
perfect
February 15, 2023
Marge Piercy is a poet worth getting to know. And then there are the closing lines:
Hope sleeps in our bones like a bear
waiting for spring to rise and walk.
Hope sleeps in our bones like a bear
waiting for spring to rise and walk.
February 18, 2024
wow!!!!!!
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January 7, 2013811.54 P618s 1983
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews