My Mother's Body (Paperback)

by Marge Piercy (Author) "I am pregnant with certain deaths of women who choked before they could speak their names could know their names before they had names to..." (more)
Key Phrases: Jim Beam

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
My Mother's Body, Marge Piercy's tenth book of poetry, takes its title from one of her strongest and most moving poems, the climax of a powerful sequence of Poems to her mother. Rooted in an honest, harrowing, but ally ecstatic confrontation of the mother / daughter relationship in all its complexity and intimacy, it is at the same time an affirmation of continuity and identification.

"The Chuppah" comprises poems actually used in her wedding ceremony with Ira Wood. This section sings with powerfully female love poetry. There is also a sustained and direct use of her Jewish identity and faith in these poems, as there is in a number of other poems throughout the volume.

Readers of Piercy's previous collections will not be surprised to encounter her mixture of the personal and the political, her love of animals and the Cape landscape. There are poems about doing housework, about accidents, about dreaming, about bag ladies, about luggage, about children's fears of nuclear holocaust; about tomcats, insects in the rafters, the influence of a name, appleblossoms and blackberries, pollution, and some of the ways women objectify one another. In "Does the light fail us, or do we fail the light?" Piercy writes with lacerating honesty about our relationships with the elderly and about hers with her father.

Some of the most moving poems are domestic, as in the final sequence, "Six underrated pleasures," which finds in daily women's tasks both pleasure and mystery, affirmation of serf and connection with the mother.

In all, My Mother's Body is one of Piercy's most powerful and balanced collections.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (March 12, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394729455
• ISBN-13: 978-0394729459
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #792,468 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Insight!, July 29, 1999

By	Felicity ([e-mail]) "fragile255" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

Marge Piercy's poetry is magnificent and at the same time very realistic! Some would say it's too feminist, but if you ask me it's very true and refreshing. The poems are feeled with energy and rage :o) BUY IT, IT'S REALLY GOOD!!!!!!!!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinarily Beautiful Love Poetry, June 6, 2002

By	"seasidewanderer" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews

Marge Piercy gives us a rare treat--sharing the poems that she and her husband wrote for their wedding. Poems in "The Chuppah" are among the most beautiful love poems that I ever have encountered. Piercy has made me rethink what marriage means, and how to celebrate all aspects of married life.

Her poems about her relationship with her parents are hard to read without weeping. All the mixed feelings that come with challenging parent-adult child relationships shimmer in these poems.

Her series of poems about underrated pleasures--sleeping with cats, folding sheets, etc.--make me remember to stop and enjoy the little things in life.

Marge Piercy is one of the greatest poets of our time! This collection is not to be missed.