Who Is Marge Piercy? Wouldn’t You Like to Know… March 6, 2009
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Born on March 31, 1936, Marge Piercy grew up with the rough times of the Depression. She grew up in Detroit, living with her mother, father, and her brother. Piercy credits her mother for her becoming a poet. Piercy has described her mother as “imaginative” and has noted her liking of lore and superstitions. Like her mother, Piercy read frequently and observed the world in which she lived in.
At the age of seventeen, Piercy won a scholarship to the University of Michigan and was the first person in her family to attend college. Although she was not considered a “real woman” due to to her desire to be educated and to write, Piercy won numerous Hopwood awards while at school. The Hopwood award was meant to encourage students to write original and creative compositions; the winner was awarded with money. This meant that she didn’t have to work during her time in school.
Later on in life, Piercy and her first husband went to France. However, their marriage ended because he couldn’t take her writing seriously and had issues with the fact that she was not a traditional woman. Afterwards, Piercy moved to Chicago, where she worked hard to hone her skills as a poet and a fictional writer. While she fervently strived to perfect her writing, she worked various jobs and became involved in the civil rights movement. Her time in Chicago proved to be a hard one since as a woman, she was viewed as a “failure” for being in her twenties and divorced. As a writer, Piercy wrote various novels, but none were published and she went unnoticed.
Piercy focused on writing works that focused on working class women who she could identify with and political issues. Her novels continued to go unpublished and her health began to decline. Upon moving to Cape Cod with her second husband. While at the Cape, her creativity seemed to regrow as she regained her health. Piercy discovered that she was part of the environment and that she truly felt at home in Cape Cod.
Marge Piercy worked long and hard to get published. Her first published novel was Going Down Fast in 1969 and her most recent work, Sex Wars, was published in 2005. Her fictional writing remains to be heavily influenced by folklore and her ideals, while her poetry focuses more on her polictical and social concerns, often centering around the need for social change.
Piercy’s poetry often centers around women’s issues and social concerns in general, calling for change in the world. Her volume of poems, The Moon Is Always Female, is widely considered as a “feminist classic”. Her poems are often written in free verse and seemingly personal. Her poetry is often shaped around a story and molds around various settings. When Piercy moved to Cape Cod, her love for the environment and landscapes formed. She wove this affection creatively into her writing.
While scrounging around Google for information on Marge Piercy’s influences, I discovered that she dislikes being asked about who influences her. However, on her website, there’s an interview in which she gives an answer. Piercy says that Whitman and Dickinson were among the first poets that influenced her during her teenage years and that Pope and Wordsworth were “terribly important”. Piercy became heavily influenced by Black poets, whom she read during the late sixties. As I mentioned in my first post, Piercy loved to read, which caused Carlos Williams, Neruda, and Vallejo to loosely influence her writing.
To read the full interview, which I strongly suggest to get a better idea of her influences, click here.
Marge Piercy. 2009. Oak Web Works. 6 Mar. 2009 http://www.margepiercy.com/main-pages/biography.htm.
Marge Piercy. 2005. 8 Mar. 2009 http://www.margepiercy.com/interviews/afterthoughts.htm.
Comments»
A very interseting person, and more so due to the fact that she is from Michigan. This lends a more personal note and intersest to her activities and works. It is dissapouinting when an auther has trouble getting published, and then later they have so many published, you are forced to wonder why all the trouble to get that first work published if so many were subsequently published. A desire for a certain amount of privacy is understandable, as not everyone wishes to ave them constantly compared to similiar or influntaial poets and writers.
Her use of poetry to display important social and political issues is a interseting method, but a good one for reaching members of the populace that would not normally read a book disccusing such issues. Important social and political issues need to be expressed to as many people as possible and she does a wonderful job extending that information to a broader audiance base.
Great job DJ, giving us a unique look into the youth and life of a very interseting poet from right here in Michigan.
Hey DJ!
Your poet sounds like an interesting person…is she still alive? It’s kind of ironic/cool that she’s from Michigan, AND lived on Cape Cod (yay New England! woot woot!)
Piercy has a few things in common with my poet, Sara Teasdale-her work was feministic, she loved nature, she had a failed marriage, and she liked old-school poets (Teasdale was strongly influenced by Dickinson, too).
~ Amanda
In addition to my earlier comment, I am now leaving one connecting our poets.
Poets from eras of war and depression. They have differing ideas over what they write about. Richard Wilbur was influenced by the works of Wallace Stevens , while yours reluctantly admits to the influences of Whitman and Dickinsen.
I’m not sure our poets have too much in common like you suggested, but both poets are creative and out there. My poet, Valentine, discusses a lot about mysticsm and dreams, while your poet deals with social and political issues. Anyway they both are good at what they do and both express poetry in a fun and entertaining way. Mine uses unusual metaphor and simple vocabulary while your’s uses lush vocabulary. Both do explain an issue hidden in there. It would be cool if your poet and my poet met in the New England area.
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