Early Grrrl : The Early Poems of Marge Piercy - Softcover

Piercy, Marge

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0965457869 ISBN 13: 9780965457866

Publisher: Leapfrog Press, 1999

Synopsis

The 'Grrrl' phenomenon is a contemporary expression of young women's humor and rage exploding in books and zines, concerts, films, and the internet. In homage to a new generation of tough young feminists, Marge Piercy presents a gathering of poems that reveal the poet as an early 'Grrrl.' Comprising over ninety poems selected from four books now out of print; poems previously published in literary magazines but never before collected and very early poems never published, this volume presents the bold and passionate political verse for which Piercy is well known alongside poems celebrating the sensual pleasures of gardening and cooking and sex; funny poems about New Year's Eve and warring boom boxes; vulnerable poems in which a young working class woman from the Midwest takes stock of herself and the limits of her world. For longtime fans and those new to Piercy's early work, this volume is an indispensable addition to the oeuvre of one of America's best-known and best-selling poets.

Marge Piercy is the author of fifteen novels and fifteen books of poetry, most recently The Art of Blessing the Day (Knopf, 1999) a selection of Piercy's Jewish-themed poems. What Are Big Girls Made Of?(Knopf, 1997) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and selected as one of their Most Notable Books of the Year by the American Library Association. In October, 1999, she will be a featured poet on the Bill Moyers' PBS-TV poetry specials "Fooling with Words" and "The Sounds of Poetry" and her newest novel, Three Women will be published by William Morrow.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface, .xi

From THE TWELVE SPOKED WHEEL FLASHING

The meaningful exchange, 4
Five thousand miles, 5
The summer invasion, and the fall, 6
Nothing you can have, 9
Archipelago, 12
The first salad of March, 15
Exodus, 16
Ask me for anything else, 18
What is permitted, 20
A gift of light, 22
Short season, 27
Ghosts, 29
The new novel, 31
Women of letters, 32

From LIVING IN THE OPEN

The token woman, 37
The clearest joy, 39
Make me feel it, 40
Sage and rue, 42
River road, High Toss, 44
Paradise Hollow, 45

About this title

About the Author:

Marge Piercy is the author of 16 novels, including the bestsellers Gone to Soldiers and The Longings of Women and the classic Woman On the Edge of Time, as well as the critically acclaimed memoir, Sleeping With Cats. The author of 16 books of poetry, she is the most anthologized poet of her generation. Her work has been translated into 18 languages.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Always unsuitable

She wore little teeth of pearls around her neck.
They were grinning politely and evenly at me.
Unsuitable they smirked. It is true

I look a stuffed turkey in a suit. Breasts
too big for the silhouette. She knew
at once that we had sex, lots of it

as if I had strolled into her diningroom
in a dirty negligee smelling gamy
smelling fishy and sporting a strawberry

on my neck. I could never charm
the mothers, although the fathers ogled
me. I was exactly what mothers had warned

their sons against.

I was quicksand
I was trouble in the afternoon. I was
the alley cat you don't bring home.

I was the dirty book you don't leave out
for your mother to see. I was the center-
fold you masturbate with then discard.

Where I came from, the nights I had wandered
and survived, scared them, and where
I would go they never imagined.

Ah, what you wanted for your sons
were little ladies hatched from the eggs
of pearls like pink and silver lizards

cool, well behaved and impervious
to desire and weather alike. Mostly
that's who they married and left.

Oh, mamas, I would have been your friend.
I would have cooked for you and held you.
I might have rattled the windows

of your sorry marriages, but I would
have loved you better than you know
how to love yourselves, bitter sisters.

About this edition

• Publisher: Leapfrog Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0965457869
• ISBN 13: 9780965457866
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 156