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Marge Piercy
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Marge Piercy Poems
- Barbie Doll This girlchild was born as usual and presented ...
- A Work Of Artifice The bonsai tree in the attractive ...
- Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve ...
- To Be Of Use The people I love the best jump into work head ...
- What Are Big Girls Made Of? The construction of a woman: a ...
- Implications Of One Plus One Sometimes we collide, tectonic ...
- Belly Good A heap of wheat, says the Song of Songs but I've...
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 ... more »
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''She never felt much in common with gay men; it was like telling her she ought to feel empathy with child molesters because they were both defined by the law as sexual deviants.''
Marge Piercy (b. 1936), U.S. poet, novelist. The High Cost of Living, ch. 3 (1978). Referring to the character Leslie.
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...
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Barbie Doll goes to MyPoemList and into my December 2018 showcase.
Thanks.
bri
(:
i just read Marge's Barbie Doll. i found it to be a fantastic write. it's about how people are treated and how they may react when they are NOT 'picture-perfect' [women] as portrayed on covers (and in centerfolds) of magazines, in TV ads, and on couter runways.
bri (:
This blew me away. I stumbled upon this by sheer luck.
Thank you for sharing this.
I came across her work quite by accident while scanning the shelves of a dusty old book store, I was intrigued by the title, 'The Moon is Always Female'. I took it down and was further intrigued by the cover, a painting of the moon being Eclipsed by a grinning, green-eyed Cheshire Cat. I opened it up at random and was intrigued further still by the poem titled 'For Strong Women'. I read the poem, and was hooked for life.
Marge Peircy's poetry breathes a sensitive femininity which is calloused with hard-won respect and gritty with the determination to make a better world through her words and experiences. She is not afraid to show her cuts bruises, nor is she afraid to cut and bruise the reader in return with her dagger-sharp words and inescapable imagery that barrels down on you like a freight train. To read her works is to be made very small and very strong, all at the same time.
Marge Piercy has been my all time favourite poet for several decades now. And she still impresses me.
Dear Marge Piercy, I like your verses.
A STORY RESOUNDING OF A WOMAN WITH THUNDEROUS THIGHS
THUD, THUD, GARGANUTIOUS PLIGHT
ALAS SHE CARRIED A LARGE BULBOUS NOSE
MARGE, TRULY APPRECIATIVE OF THY PROSE.