Parti-Colored Blocks for a Quilt

Poets on Poetry

by Marge Piercy

Piercy writes of women and poetry and of woman becoming poet

Genres: Poetry, Essays, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 1983

About the author

Marge 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)

Reviews

[Patty · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Often I imagine in different and better times not having to be political. I can even imagine, when I am at the bottom of a long uphill grade, doing something besides writing novels, although I doubt it. But I never imagine living without poetry.”

This collection by and about Marge Piercy has been on my reading shelf since I wrote a paper on her for a class I audited at Randolph-Macon College. I used this book for my paper, but at the time I did not think I was finished with it.

I dislike having a bunch of unfinished book on my shelves, so at the end of 2015 I tried to complete some of these titles. This is the one I actually got to. As I read through it, I realized that I had read more of it in 2014 than I had thought. So it didn’t take much time. I am especially glad to have reread the interview between Piercy and Ira Wood.

I will continue to leaf through my volumes of Piercy’s poetry. Her poems speak to me because she writes of issues that intersect with my life. I love her gardening poems and the poetry about her faith. I am glad to be reminded of her way with words. She is one of the many poets who has whet my interest in poetry.

However, thanks to writing my paper, I feel like I know enough about Piercy. I doubt I will read anything more about her life. Sometimes it is better just to read what people wrote rather than about their lives.

Other books I have read that are related to this book:
Break, Blow, Burn
Journal of a Solitude
Sleeping with Cats
A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far

[Beth Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating trip in time and also an interesting look inside Marge Piercy's head. I loved it, but as my favorite author, I love everything she writes.