Sunday, April 24, 2011

Synthesis Response

       For almost all of Marge Piercy's works that I have read, she has written about body image and women. She grew up in a time that was hard for women to really flourish and do what they wished. Because of this, it had a huge impact on her poetry due to the suppression she experienced.
       Throughout poems such as Barbie Doll, we see that she is writing about body image. This is a main theme in  most of her poems.
       Marge Piercy's other main theme is suppression of women. In her time, as stated earlier, women were seen as inferior to men. Marge knew that this was very untrue, and that women had and still have potential to do great things. In 'The Friend', her friend is telling her that she must change her body image to be beautiful. Sadly, it is predicted that Marge's poems, mostly based on body image and suppression, were due to how she was treated as a child. In lengthier biographies that I read about her, it claimed that this is true. In others, they did not mention  anything like that.
       In general, I found that most of Piercy's writings were her own thoughts and feelings transformed onto paper. I really enjoyed reading them, but they got old after a while. Essentially, I did enjoy her writings.

Marge Piercy Speaking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu0xATnQOZM

Poetic Influence: Emily Dickenson

Emily Dickinson
Background:
Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was a very influential American Poet, but not well known in her own time. She wrote tons of poetry, but actually never published a book contained with her works, they were anonymously published. For her time, she wrote very provocative poems about life, death, love, and the outside world.

2 POEMS:
SURGEONS must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the culprit,—Life!
This poem, I thought was very similar to Marge Piercy’s own writings because both emphasize the idea that surgeons (or the people who have an emotional impact on others) must be careful. “Underneath their fine incisions” lays the idea of “life” itself. Life represents emotions and experiences that an individual encounters and feels. In Marge Piercy’s poems, she writes a lot about different experiences she’s had, most of which are negative. These experiences tend to mostly be about her childhood, body image, and negative thoughts on these. 

Friday, April 15, 2011

Poem 8: My Mother's Body (part 4) by Marge Piercy

My Mother's Body

4.

What is it we turn from, what is it we fear?
Did I truly think you could put me back inside?
Did I think I would fall into you as into a molten
furnace and be recast, that I would become you?

What did you fear in me, the child who wore
your hair, the woman who let that black hair
grow long as a banner of darkness, when you
a proper flapper wore yours cropped?

You pushed and you pulled on my rubbery
flesh, you kneaded me like a ball of dough.
Rise, rise, and then you pounded me flat.
Secretly the bones formed in the bread.

I became willful, private as a cat.
You never knew what alleys I had wandered.
You called me bad and I posed like a gutter
queen in a dress sewn of knives.

All I feared was being stuck in a box
with a lid. A good woman appeared to me
indistinguishable from a dead one
except that she worked all the time.

Your payday never came. Your dreams ran
with bright colors like Mexican cottons
that bled onto the drab sheets of the day
and would not bleach with scrubbing.

My dear, what you said was one thing
but what you sang was another, sweetly
subversive and dark as blackberries
and I became the daughter of your dream.

This body is your body, ashes now
and roses, but alive in my eyes, my breasts,
my throat, my thighs. You run in me
a tang of salt in the creek waters of my blood,

you sing in my mind like wine. What you
did not dare in your life you dare in mine.


Analysis

       There are 4 parts to this poem, but I chose this one to analyze. This poem is the last part of 'My Mother's Body', which is about how her and her mother had grown to have a deminished relationship. "Did I truely think you could put me back inside?" writes Marge Piercy. This line is the hurt she feels from her mother's mistreatment. She wonders if she would ever really "fall into [her] as into molten", like a mold of her mother.
       Clearly, she is very different from her mother. She has long flowing hair, which indicates that she was rather care-free, whereas her mother has "a propper flapper...cropped" haircut, indicating that her mother is a harsh person who demands neatness and conformity.
       Her mother has seemingly "kneaded [her] like a ball of dough" to try to make her into the perfect woman. Marge would "rise, rise, and then [be] pounded...flat" by her mother. This is an act of suppression on women, of which her mother helped.
       Eventually, Marge writes that she "became willful, private as a cat", due to her mother's mistreatment. She "feared...being stuck in a box with a lid", nowhere to go and nothing to do. She wanted a life more than just boring and what was set out for her/demanded by her mom.
       She also writes that her mother worked a lot, but her "payday never came", which means that a reward for her hardwork never really came. Her mom once had "dreams...with bright colors like Mexican cottons...[that] woul dnot bleach with scrubbing". Clearly, her mother was not the type of women she made herself out to be like. Her and her mother had the potential to get along and be very close, as they once were, but suppression got the best of the older woman.
       She writes, "my body is your body...you run in me a tang of salt in the creek waters of my blood". She emphasizes the idea that she and her mother are very similar people. The last line, "what you did not dare in your life you dare in mine" is my favorite part of this poem because Marge is saying that her and her mom are truely inseperable and similar people. But the mom clearly couldn't do what she wanted with her life, for the oppurtunity was never given to her. Marge would be the woman that her mother could never be.

Poem 7: The Morning Half-Life Blues by Marge Piercy

The Morning Half-Life Blues

Girls buck the wind in the grooves toward work
in fuzzy coats promised to be warm as fur.
The shop windows snicker
flashing them hurrying over dresses they cannot afford:
you are not pretty enough, not pretty enough.

Blown with yesterday’s papers through the boiled coffee morning
we dream of the stop on the subway without a name,
the door in the heart of the grove of skyscrapers,
that garden where we nestle to the teats of a furry world,
lie in mounds of peony eating grapes,
and need barter ourselves for nothing.
not by the hour, not by the pound, not by the skinful,
that party to which no one will give or sell us the key
though we have all thought briefly we found it
drunk or in bed.

Black girls with thin legs and high necks stalking like herons,
plump girls with blue legs and green eyelids and
strawberry breasts,
swept off to be frozen in fluorescent cubes,
the vacuum of your jobs sucks your brains dry
and fills you with the ooze of melted comics.
Living is later. This is your rented death.
You grasp at hard commodities and vague lusts
to make up, to pay for each day
which opens like a can and is empty, and then another,
afternoons like dinosaur eggs stuffed with glue.

Girls of the dirty morning, ticketed and spent,
you will be less at forty than at twenty.
Your living is a waste product of somebody’s mill.
I would fix you like buds to a city where people work
to make and do things necessary and good,
where work is real as bread and babies and trees in parks
where we would all blossom slowly and ripen to sound fruit.


Analysis

       Marge Piercy starts off thsi poem with the description of working women who look dreaminly into shop windows over "dresses they cannot afford". The last line in the stanza emphasizes suppression of women, as someone in their heads is saying "you are not prety enough, not pretty enough" to buy the dresses.
       In the second stanza, Piercy writes about a "dream...stop on on the subway", which serves as a getaway for the women. She says "we", so clearly she is a part of the desire for a better life. To counteract this, she describes the "heart of the grove of skyscrapers...[a] garden where we nestle to the teats of a furry world". This asthetic line proves to be a pleasent one in which the reader can enjoy.
       The third stanza offers more suppression as she describes unique women being "swept off to be frozen in fluorescent cubes", meaning that they have ben condemned to a live of a conformist job. The "vacuum of your jobs sucks your brains dry", which is a hyperbole furthmore explaining that these jobs are bad for women, that their brains will be like "melted comics"; filled with nonsense. Further into the stanza, she describes how a "rented death" serves as a boring job that these women are to have. Each day "opens like a can and is emptpy" and contines on to be like this, day after day. There will be nothing new and exciting for these women to look forward to.
       In the last stanza, Marge Piercy writes that these women will "be less at forty than at twenty" because their lives have been spent working for nothing. The suppression of women back when she was growing up was so bad that even if they did have jobs, they would feel like the women in this poem do. Hence, the "half-life blues". However, she hints that she is different from the women she describes in the poem. She says, "I would fix you like buds to a city where people work to make and do things necessary and good...where we would all blossom and slowly ripen to sound fruit." This line gives a sense of hope because she, too, has been in the position of a suppressed woman. She wants nothing more but a better life for hersef and others.

Poem 6: Traveling Dream by Marge Piercy

TRAVELING DREAM

I am packing to go to the airport
but somehow I am never packed.
I keep remembering more things
I keep forgetting.

Secretly the clock is bolting
forward ten minutes at a click
instead of one. Each time
I look away, it jumps.

Now I remember I have to find
the cats. I have four cats
even when I am asleep.
One is on the bed and I slip 

her into the suitcase.
One is under the sofa. I
drag him out. But the tabby
in the suitcase has vanished.

Now my tickets have run away.
Maybe the cat has my tickets.
I can only find one cat.
My purse has gone into hiding.

Now it is time to get packed.
I take the suitcase down.
There is a cat in it but no clothes.
My tickets are floating in the bath

tub full of water. I dry them.
One cat is in my purse
but my wallet has dissolved.
The tickets are still dripping.

I look at the clock as it leaps
forward and see I have missed
my plane. My bed is gone now.
There is one cat the size of a sofa. 

Analysis

       In the first stanza, Piercy writes that she is "packing to go to the airport", like she is making big plans. But these plans never work, as she is "somehow...never packed". She continues on into the second stanza saying that time is "bolting forward".For her, time is passing too quickly, and she seemingly does just does not have enough of it.
       She "jumps" into the third stanza, as if she is jumping to a different thought, which highlights the correlation between the word "jump" as used in the poem, and her thought process. Also, in this third stanza, she talks about 4 different types of cats. I wasn't sure exactly what she meant by these different cats, but, she does say "I have four cats even when I am asleep", which makes me think that in the narrator's point of view, this person has 4 different types of personalities perhaps? She writes more, the emphasize the 4 personalities when the "tabby in the suitcase has vanished". Sometimes, these personalities tend to disappear.
       She continues on into the 5th stanza, writing "now my tickets have run away. maybe the cat has my tickets. I can only find one cat". Throughout this poem, she continues to lose track of where things are.
       She delves more into the fact that she needs to get packed, but she can't seem to find her clothes. She claims that her "tickets are floating in the bath". The ticket seems like a source of freedom for her, because the ticket will bring her to the airport in which she will be able to fly away from where she currently is. Since the tickets are floating in the bath, her freedom has been diminished.
       In the next stanza, she continues to write that the cats are every where, one including "in [her] purse", and that the "tickets are still dripping". The distractions have served is a disablement to her.  
       In the final stanza, she notices that time has passed. "...the clock...leaps forward and [she sees she has] missed [the] plane". The distractions from the cats have taken her off the path of success, which was to leave where she currently is. The last line, "there is one cat the size of a sofa" emphasizes a hyperbole that has gotten in the way of the desire to leave.      

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Poem 5: A Work of Artifice by Marge Piercy

A WORK OF ARTIFICE

The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch. 

Analysis

       In this poem, I took it to be that the 'bonsai tree' was actually a woman. They live in the 'attractive pot', which would be a nice home. Marge Piercy writes, that the bonsai tree "could have grown eighty feet tall" which was its potential. If it had not been suppressed so much by the gardener, then it would be more than nine inches on height. The gardener is a man who has suppressed a woman, and because of that, she can no longer grow, for her personality has been severely diminished.
       The 'gardener' (man) tells her that she must be "small and cozy, domestic and weak" and continues to tell her "how lucky [she is] to have a pot (house) to grow in". By saying this, the woman/bonsai tree is being severely suppressed by the man/gardener because he is telling her that she has to act a certain way. She must take care of domestic activities and tasks, which depresses her. She writes that "one must begin very early to dwarf [a woman's] growth" in the way that she has been dwarfed.  

Poem 4: The Woman in the Ordinary by Marge Piercy

THE WOMAN IN THE ORDINARY
The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl
is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched.
Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself
under ripples of conversation and debate.
The woman in the block of ivory soap
has massive thighs that neigh,
great breasts that blare and strong arms that trumpet.
The woman of the golden fleece
laughs uproariously from the belly
inside the girl who imitates
a Christmas card virgin with glued hands,
who fishes for herself in other's eyes,
who stoops and creeps to make herself smaller.
In her bottled up is a woman peppery as curry,
a yam of a woman of butter and brass,
compounded of acid and sweet like a pineapple,
like a handgrenade set to explode,
like goldenrod ready to bloom. 

Analysis

       The first stanza starts off with "the woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl", which in actuality, is not ordinary at all. A woman shouldn't be pudgy or downcast, because this is a depressing thought. She continues to drown herself in "ripples of conversation and debate", which serve as distractions for her. She is clearly very unhappy as an "ordinary woman", which at the time was the generic 'housewife' of the 50's. 
       The next section proceeds to contain evidence of more suppression, where she describes herself as having "massive thighs" and "strong arms that trumpet". Despite her ordinarily figured self, she remains strong. 
       She is a "girl who imitates a Christmas card virgin with glued hands", indicating that she has a sense of humor; that she is not just this 'ordinary woman' she was set out to be. She doesn't quite know herself yet, as she "fishes for herself in other's eyes". This line makes me think that she is about college age when she wrote this. I think she was just about to come out of her shell that she was built in for such a long time, that when she wrote this, she was just beginning to realize how much better life can be than being an 'ordinary woman'. 
       In the last stanza, she writes that "in her bottled up is a woman peppery as curry", meaning that she is much more than just a woman. She has spice and flavor to her. She is a "handgrenade set to explode", which implies that she was been severely suppressed by society and her family.

Poem 3: The Friend by Marge Piercy

THE FRIEND
We sat across the table.
he said, cut off your hands.
they are always poking at things.
they might touch me.
I said yes.

Food grew cold on the table.
he said, burn your body.
it is not clean and smells like sex.
it rubs my mind sore.
I said yes.

I love you, I said.
That's very nice, he said
I like to be loved,
that makes me happy.
Have you cut off your hands yet? 

Analysis

       In the first stanza, Piercy writes, "cut off of your hands" as a command from the supposed 'friend'. 
This hyperbole accentuates how her hands are "always poking at things", and how he doesn't like it. He doesn't want the hands to touch him. She agrees to cut off her hands, which shows that she is insecure and ends up listening to him.
       In the second stanza, he tells her to "burn her body", a drastic command. He claims that "it is not clean and smells like sex", making him sick. She continues to agree with him and not stand up for herself, which furthermore provides evidence for suppression of women.
       In the last stanza, she tells him that she loves him, and he can only reply "that's very nice", like he is less than interested in her. He asks if she has cut off her hands yet. This question nags at her, making her feel like she wants to be loved. She feels as though in order to feel loved, she must answer to the commands of this man, even if they are drastic, such as cutting off her hands or burning her body to get rid of the impurities. The main theme of this poem is suppression of women, which she seems to like to write about a lot.

Poem 2: To Be of Use by Marge Piercy



To Be of Use

The people I the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil, 
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used. 
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real. 
Analysis

       Marge Piercy writes that "the people she loves the best...swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight", meaning that the people that she likes to be around the most are hard working people. They are so consumed with their work that they seem "like half-submerged balls" floating in the sea. This first stanza is interesting because she sets a new type of tone in her writing. It is less depressing and suppressing towards women. I think that at this point in her life when she wrote the poem, she was in college or older because she seems much happier and working with people that are good for her to be around.
       She continues to write that she likes the people who "strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward", which means that she enjoys being around people who work hard in tough times so that they and others can pull through. 
       She likes that these people "move in a constant rhythm". By this, she indicates that she likes consistency and security in her life, which she wasn't given as a child because she wasn't treated right.
       In the next stanza, she alludes to the fact that she wants satisfaction in life, which a 50's woman's lifestyle would not provide for her at all. She is the "pitcher [that] cries for watter to carry" in a world that doesn't want her to.

Poem 1: Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy

 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 fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up. 

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

Analysis
       In Piercy's poem, Barbie Doll, the main idea of this piece is to emphasize how suppressed women were when she was growing up. To back this up, in her first few lines, she writes "this girl child was...presented dolls that did pee-pee...miniature GE stoves and irons". The list of gifts given to this "girlchild" are typically objects that women were supposed to use when they grow older. The idea, back in her time, was that women were to cook, clean, and take care of the household. By saying that she was given these things at such a young age, she emphasizes how suppressed the "girlchild" is.
       "In the magic of puberty", the "girlchild" grows a "great big nose and fat legs", according to a fellow classmate. Even in school, Piercy emphasizes how bad women and girls were treated throughout her childhood, which was around the late 30's to early 50's. 
        Despite being put down by a patriarchal society, the 'girlchild' is "healthy, tested intelligent...strong", indicating that she is truly a normal girl, but her "fat nose on thick legs" make her an imperfect person in that type of society. 
       'Girlchild' is furthermore demanded to "play coy...exercise, diet, smile, and wheedle", all of the things that she seems to not naturally want to do. When Marge Piercy writes, "she cut off her nose and her legs", she does not actually mean that 'girlchild' did this drastic act. It is a hyperbole. Piercy means that she  has tried to cut off the shackles that society has chained to her to make her a woman that she is clearly not. In the last stanza, we see that 'girlchild' has surrendered to a patriarchal society, and is unhappy as she is "in the casket displayed", dressed up in a ridiculous attire. She is on display to the world as someone she wishes not to be. 



Biography of Marge Piercy

Marge Piercy was born on March 31st, 1936 to Bert Bernice Bunnin and Robert Douglas Piercy. She grew up in Detroit, and related to the era in which she lived, her and her family were affected by the Great Depression. They lived in a small house in a working-class neighborhood, which separated blacks and whites by blocks. Her grandfather was a union organizer, murdered while organizing bakery workers. She loved her grandmother very much, as she and her mother shared lots of stories with young Marge. Piercy gives credit to her mother for shaping her into a poet. She said that her mom was emotional, imaginative, superstitious, and a good story teller. Her mom told her to observe the world around her very closely, and remember what she gathered. As she grew into a teenager, Marge left home at just age 17, due to her and her mother fighting often. Before her mother died, she did restore the relationship. She wasn’t very close with her father, who died just 4 years after her mother.
Marge had a happy childhood. She had gotten the German measles when she was very young, and during that sick time, she read a lot. At 17, when she left her home, she ended with winning a scholarship to go to the University of Michigan. She was a very good student and was motivated to learn.
She was different because she felt as though she couldn’t fit the proper image of a woman that 1950’s Freudianism had set for her. She did, however, succeed in winning awards such as the Hopwood award, and many of them. The money she got from this gave her the advantage to travel to France after graduation. There, she met her first husband. The French, Jewish, particle physicist was kind and smart, but very demanding with expectations of conventional sex roles in marriage. He didn’t take her writing seriously, and ultimately, she left him. Piercy was extremely poor after this.
She moved to Chicago after the marriage ended, working various part-time jobs to get by. She was also involved in civil rights movements. She commented that during that time, those were her hardest lived years. Society had set this bar for women that was way too low. She continued to write various novels, but couldn’t seem to get them published. They were works of fiction with a political dimension, which included women who were working class people that were “not as simple as they were supposed to be.”
In 1962 she remarried to a computer scientist. This was more of an open relationship where people even lived with them. She moved with him to Cambridge, then to San Francisco, and then Boston. Piercy was heavily involved, at this time, with the VOICE, a Vietnam peace group located in Ann Arbor. She realized here, that the problem with her book, Going Down Fast was to feminist for people to actually enjoy. She rewrote the book in a male’s point of view. She also continued to write Dance the Eagle to Sleep. She wrote many books with a political twist.
In 1965, she began to get very sick. Her and her husband moved to New York and started more activist groups, but again, she was still very sick, so they moved to Cape Cod. Here, she spent a lot of time by herself, gardening and growing spiritually. Marge also spent a lot of time writing poetry. She divorced her husband in 1976.
In 1982, she married Ira Wood. She wrote a play with him, called The Last White Class, as well as a novel in 1998, Storm Tide. In 1997, together, they founded Leapfrog Press, a small literary publishing company.
Currently, she often goes on small tours for lectures, workshops, and readings. She loves reading and writing, and says she will and does continue to write, feeling that she is lucky because she can do so.