Now in paperback, a collection to treasure from one of our most popular poets- poems that range from the Detroit of her childhood to her current life on Cape Cod, from deep appreciations of the natural world to elegies for lost friends and fellow poets.
MARGE PIERCYis the author of nineteen poetry collections, a memoir, seventeen novels, and a book of short stories. Her work has been translated into nineteen languages, and she has won many honors, including the Golden Rose, the oldest poetry award in the country. She lives on Cape Cod with her husband, Ira Wood, the novelist, memoirist, community radio interviewer, and essayist. She has given readings, lectures, or workshops at more than five hundred venues in the States and abroad.
“Made in Detroit traces the personal and poetic evolution that has
made Marge Piercy one of the most esteemed and enduring writers of
the past four decades. It begins with childhood memories of
Depression-era Detroit, where she witnessed poverty, desolation and
the silent struggles of her mother, who was dominated by an
overbearing husband. Piercy’s decision to speak for the voiceless
fuels a lifelong journey that begins with some wild days, broken
relationships and learning what it means to be a poet. One of
those lessons—to speak authentically—shapes every section in the
collection as Piercy shifts from the city to the natural world,
where snow, the ocean and other forces soften or block human
advances. . . . Some of the most powerful pieces show the
speaker grappling with spirituality and struggling to be a better
person. ‘I walk into this new beginning/of a self still
under construction.’ Works about marriage, enduring love and the
loss of peers and relatives round out this collection, which
beautifully weaves multiple threads into a rich portrait.”
–Elizabeth Lund, The Washington Post
“Piercy once again proves her talent for finding beauty anywhere
and masterfully elevating it against the dark grit of
reality. From her own humble beginnings in Detroit to her life
on the Cape, Piercy reflects on how she’s loved, how she’s changed,
how the country around her has evolved, and how her past continues
to inform her present. Touching and relatable, hers is
a journey you won’t want to miss.”—Meaghan Wagner, Everyday
eBook
“The excavation of landscape and memory bring a majestic tone to
Piercy’s 19th collection. Her poetry is softened by nostalgia and
plainspoken language; it is sharpened by striking images and her
fury at the failures of social society.”—Anna Clark, The Detroit
Free Press
A working-class gal who grew up in Detroit in the wake of the Great
Depression, Piercy begins her nineteenth poetry collection with an
autobiographical sequence of electrifying braggadocio and deep
pain. She declares that she was saved by books. “Libraries were my
cathedrals. Librarians / my priests promising salvation.” Piercy
also experienced transcendence in nature, eventually finding her
true home on Cape Cod. Piercy writes sensitively of the glory of
the sea, storms, the seasons, but always with a divining sense of
the living world’s hard lessons. In jabbing and fleet-footed poems
that swing from rapture to outrage, she describes a heron wrestling
with a snake, salutes the mummichog, a scrappy little fish tolerant
of climate extremes and pollution, and shares a gardener’s
knowledge of the changes wrought by global warming. Writing
poignantly of social injustice, Jewish holidays, marriage, and age,
Piercy, frank, caustically witty, and caring, generates suspense,
drama, and arresting images, such as when she envisions her many
selves, embodied in all the clothes she’s ever worn, “strung on a
blocklong clothesline.” --Donna Seaman, Booklist
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
