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Marge Piercy
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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...
To The Pay Toilet
You strop my anger, especially
when I find you in restaurant or bar
and pay for the same liquid, coming and going.
In bus depots and airports and turnpike plazas
some woman is dragging in with three kids hung off her
shrieking their simple urgency like gulls.
She's supposed to pay for each of them
and the privilege of not dirtying the corporate floor.
Sometimes a woman in a uniform's on duty
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.