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The Moon Is Always Female: Poems
“The poems in this volume fall into two parts. Hand Games, poems of the first section, is the daily bread of my past two years or so. They are the artifacts of loving in a personal way, of struggles in a wide and a narrower frame, of planting and harvesting in the earth and on paper, of building new friendships and mourning the death of friends. They speak of zucchini and oaks and cats, of jogging and writing, of nuclear power plants and suicide, of fat and of street hassling.
”The Lunar Cycle forms the second part. I first heard of the lunar calendar in my childhood, when I asked why Passover falls on a different date every year and was answered that it falls on Nisan 14, the fourteenth day of the lunar month of Nisan. The next time I came across the moon-month was in reading Robert Graves in search of the old goddess religions. But the lunar calendar has really only been an intimate part of my life since I moved near the ocean and the bay and had to become conscious of the tides; for one thing, to get the sweet Wellfleet oysters.
For more precise understanding I owe a lot to Nancy F. W.Passmore of the Luna Press, who every year produces The Lunar Calendar with thirteen months, their old Celtic names, associations from around the world, time of moon rise and set and all the phases. It tells me at a glance when my period will come and when I can expect to ovulate, and it is the most beautiful calendar I have ever seen, with the months in the form of spirals rather than grids.
”Not being constrained by commerce to produce a calendar to sell by January first, Roman time, I begin when my year opens, in the spring; with Nisan, the first month of the Jewish religious year – although I have used the Celtic names, as does The Lunar Calendar, in homage to that labor of love. Rediscovering the lunar calendar has been a part of rediscovering women’s past, but it has also meant for me a series of doorways to some of the non-rational aspects of being a living woman: Thus The Lunar Cycle, explorations of my last two years.”
”The Lunar Cycle forms the second part. I first heard of the lunar calendar in my childhood, when I asked why Passover falls on a different date every year and was answered that it falls on Nisan 14, the fourteenth day of the lunar month of Nisan. The next time I came across the moon-month was in reading Robert Graves in search of the old goddess religions. But the lunar calendar has really only been an intimate part of my life since I moved near the ocean and the bay and had to become conscious of the tides; for one thing, to get the sweet Wellfleet oysters.
For more precise understanding I owe a lot to Nancy F. W.Passmore of the Luna Press, who every year produces The Lunar Calendar with thirteen months, their old Celtic names, associations from around the world, time of moon rise and set and all the phases. It tells me at a glance when my period will come and when I can expect to ovulate, and it is the most beautiful calendar I have ever seen, with the months in the form of spirals rather than grids.
”Not being constrained by commerce to produce a calendar to sell by January first, Roman time, I begin when my year opens, in the spring; with Nisan, the first month of the Jewish religious year – although I have used the Celtic names, as does The Lunar Calendar, in homage to that labor of love. Rediscovering the lunar calendar has been a part of rediscovering women’s past, but it has also meant for me a series of doorways to some of the non-rational aspects of being a living woman: Thus The Lunar Cycle, explorations of my last two years.”
133 pages, Paperback
First published March 12, 1980
About the author
Marge Piercy
102 books889 followersMarge Piercy is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.
Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family deeply affected by the Great Depression. She was the first in her family to attend college, studying at the University of Michigan. Winning a Hopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction (1957) enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France, and her formal schooling ended with an M.A. from Northwestern University. Her first book of poems, Breaking Camp, was published in 1968.
An indifferent student in her early years, Piercy developed a love of books when she came down with rheumatic fever in her mid-childhood and could do little but read. "It taught me that there's a different world there, that there were all these horizons that were quite different from what I could see," she said in a 1984 interview.
As of 2013, she is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one non-fiction book, and one memoir.
Her novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. While Body of Glass (published in the US as He, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, City of Darkness, City of Light is set during the French Revolution. Other of her novels, such as Summer People and The Longings of Women are set during the modern day. All of her books share a focus on women's lives.
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) mixes a time travel story with issues of social justice, feminism, and the treatment of the mentally ill. This novel is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. William Gibson has credited Woman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace of Cyberpunk. Piercy tells this in an introduction to Body of Glass. Body of Glass (He, She and It) (1991) postulates an environmentally ruined world dominated by sprawling mega-cities and a futuristic version of the Internet, through which Piercy weaves elements of Jewish mysticism and the legend of the Golem, although a key story element is the main character's attempts to regain custody of her young son.
Many of Piercy's novels tell their stories from the viewpoints of multiple characters, often including a first-person voice among numerous third-person narratives. Her World War II historical novel, Gone To Soldiers (1987) follows the lives of nine major characters in the United States, Europe and Asia. The first-person account in Gone To Soldiers is the diary of French teenager Jacqueline Levy-Monot, who is also followed in a third-person account after her capture by the Nazis.
Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personal free verse and often addresses the same concern with feminist and social issues. Her work shows commitment to the dream of social change (what she might call, in Judaic terms, tikkun olam, or the repair of the world), rooted in story, the wheel of the Jewish year, and a range of landscapes and settings.
She lives in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband, Ira Wood.
(from Wikipedia)
Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family deeply affected by the Great Depression. She was the first in her family to attend college, studying at the University of Michigan. Winning a Hopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction (1957) enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France, and her formal schooling ended with an M.A. from Northwestern University. Her first book of poems, Breaking Camp, was published in 1968.
An indifferent student in her early years, Piercy developed a love of books when she came down with rheumatic fever in her mid-childhood and could do little but read. "It taught me that there's a different world there, that there were all these horizons that were quite different from what I could see," she said in a 1984 interview.
As of 2013, she is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one non-fiction book, and one memoir.
Her novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. While Body of Glass (published in the US as He, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, City of Darkness, City of Light is set during the French Revolution. Other of her novels, such as Summer People and The Longings of Women are set during the modern day. All of her books share a focus on women's lives.
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) mixes a time travel story with issues of social justice, feminism, and the treatment of the mentally ill. This novel is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. William Gibson has credited Woman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace of Cyberpunk. Piercy tells this in an introduction to Body of Glass. Body of Glass (He, She and It) (1991) postulates an environmentally ruined world dominated by sprawling mega-cities and a futuristic version of the Internet, through which Piercy weaves elements of Jewish mysticism and the legend of the Golem, although a key story element is the main character's attempts to regain custody of her young son.
Many of Piercy's novels tell their stories from the viewpoints of multiple characters, often including a first-person voice among numerous third-person narratives. Her World War II historical novel, Gone To Soldiers (1987) follows the lives of nine major characters in the United States, Europe and Asia. The first-person account in Gone To Soldiers is the diary of French teenager Jacqueline Levy-Monot, who is also followed in a third-person account after her capture by the Nazis.
Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personal free verse and often addresses the same concern with feminist and social issues. Her work shows commitment to the dream of social change (what she might call, in Judaic terms, tikkun olam, or the repair of the world), rooted in story, the wheel of the Jewish year, and a range of landscapes and settings.
She lives in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband, Ira Wood.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 187 reviews
June 6, 2023
I wonder why I wasn't over the moon about THE MOON IS ALWAYS FEMALE?
Marge Piercy, who is still among us, at age 87, is a perfectly capable writer, and her poetry is perfectly sound. . . yet I found myself taking long breaks after I'd read just one, and I had to almost prod myself to get back into the collection. I can typically read a slim book of poetry like this within an hour, and this one took me weeks.
I had a similar experience here that I've had before with Nikki Giovanni's work. . . both poets seem a little too keen on political activism in their work for my own personal taste. I'm totally in awe of people who have devoted their lives to political activism, but, unfortunately, it doesn't align with the way I experience poetry.
I'm still giving it 4 stars for merit and technical skill, and I'll leave you with my favorite of hers:
Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.
Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.
Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.
The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms
is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.
The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.
Marge Piercy, who is still among us, at age 87, is a perfectly capable writer, and her poetry is perfectly sound. . . yet I found myself taking long breaks after I'd read just one, and I had to almost prod myself to get back into the collection. I can typically read a slim book of poetry like this within an hour, and this one took me weeks.
I had a similar experience here that I've had before with Nikki Giovanni's work. . . both poets seem a little too keen on political activism in their work for my own personal taste. I'm totally in awe of people who have devoted their lives to political activism, but, unfortunately, it doesn't align with the way I experience poetry.
I'm still giving it 4 stars for merit and technical skill, and I'll leave you with my favorite of hers:
Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.
Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.
Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.
The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms
is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.
The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.
August 5, 2019
Fantastic small book of poems that really spoke to me. I read it very slowly and just tried to absorb each poem and digest her meaning. Highly recommend to both women and men. Five strong stars.
January 20, 2018
A beautiful collection, if a little short, I really felt connected to her inner beliefs, and feelings. Not just as a poet, but as a person. I think she would make a great friend. The poems are a perfect blend of the gutsy and raw, the lyrical and the meditative. Some I felt the need to speak out aloud, I wanted to hear the words not just read them. She also conjures up such imagery and wonder, with a deep and concise mind, a touching human soul. A vast array of emotions was opened up. Very impressive.
An excerpt from the title poem -
"A woman is screaming and I hear her.
A woman is bleeding and I see her
bleeding from the mouth, the womb, the breasts
in a fountain of dark blood of dismal
daily tedious sorrow quite palatable
to the taste of the mighty and taken for granted
that the bread of domesticity be baked
of our flesh, that the hearth be built
of our bones of animals kept for meat and milk,
that we open and lie under and weep.
I want to say over the names of my mothers
like the stones of a path I am climbing
rock by slippery rock into the mists.
Never even at knife point have I wanted
or been willing to be or become a man.
I want only to be myself and free".
An excerpt from the title poem -
"A woman is screaming and I hear her.
A woman is bleeding and I see her
bleeding from the mouth, the womb, the breasts
in a fountain of dark blood of dismal
daily tedious sorrow quite palatable
to the taste of the mighty and taken for granted
that the bread of domesticity be baked
of our flesh, that the hearth be built
of our bones of animals kept for meat and milk,
that we open and lie under and weep.
I want to say over the names of my mothers
like the stones of a path I am climbing
rock by slippery rock into the mists.
Never even at knife point have I wanted
or been willing to be or become a man.
I want only to be myself and free".
March 17, 2024
A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.
I am not surprised at all at loving this poetry collection from Marge Piercy, because I adore her and I just connect so deeply with her work (my love for Woman on the Edge of Time and He She and It is already well known!). And so this book has all the elements of Piercy's writing that I adore: a hugely political POV, an emotional + visceral perspective, a bidding for connection and solidarity and support and a more non-monogamous way of looking at relationships! Very much a win.
I find it easy to admire in trees
what depresses me in people
The low road is a poem that very much reminded me of the themes in Woman on the Edge of Time, To have without holding (read it here) feels like a non-monogamy manifesto! There are also a few poems about cats, which are pretty much amazing, there's a lot about women here (For strong women) and bangers about reproductive rights (Right to life). The inquisition is also very funny, it's about talking to your lover about other lovers and it's adorable. A new constellation is basically about a polycule, but more like a relationship anarchy web of connections.
It felt soothing when she basically trashed people who start a new relationship and forget about their friends (very much a pet topic of mine!)
But you know nobody dies of such executions.
Your discarded friends are drinking champagne
and singing off key just as if they were happy
without you. One person’s garbage is another’s
new interior decorating scheme. If she is your
whole world, how quickly the sun sets now.
These poems are sensual, angry, loving and political a.f.! I really haven't read enough poetry to have a top, but I can say that this shot up in my cluster of favorites, alongside Audre Lorde's The Black Unicorn and Aja Monet's My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter
How could you make love to him in an elevator
you say. But it was a freight elevator
I say, it went up very slowly, you could lock
it between floors. Besides that was a decade
ago, I was more adventurist then. Oh, you say,
so you wouldn’t fuck me in an elevator, I see.
I like my comfort better now, I say, but you
are my only comfort. Have you an elevator in mind?
Also, the last 15 poems, starting with the eponymous The moon is always female are really damn witchy in tone and vibe, inspired by the Celtic astrology calendar. Really gorgeous stuff, I will be reading this over and over again.
Lonely, I am not alone, but my mind surrounds
me with demon whispers, skeptical ghosts.
I prefer to quarrel with those I truly love.
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.
I am not surprised at all at loving this poetry collection from Marge Piercy, because I adore her and I just connect so deeply with her work (my love for Woman on the Edge of Time and He She and It is already well known!). And so this book has all the elements of Piercy's writing that I adore: a hugely political POV, an emotional + visceral perspective, a bidding for connection and solidarity and support and a more non-monogamous way of looking at relationships! Very much a win.
I find it easy to admire in trees
what depresses me in people
The low road is a poem that very much reminded me of the themes in Woman on the Edge of Time, To have without holding (read it here) feels like a non-monogamy manifesto! There are also a few poems about cats, which are pretty much amazing, there's a lot about women here (For strong women) and bangers about reproductive rights (Right to life). The inquisition is also very funny, it's about talking to your lover about other lovers and it's adorable. A new constellation is basically about a polycule, but more like a relationship anarchy web of connections.
It felt soothing when she basically trashed people who start a new relationship and forget about their friends (very much a pet topic of mine!)
But you know nobody dies of such executions.
Your discarded friends are drinking champagne
and singing off key just as if they were happy
without you. One person’s garbage is another’s
new interior decorating scheme. If she is your
whole world, how quickly the sun sets now.
These poems are sensual, angry, loving and political a.f.! I really haven't read enough poetry to have a top, but I can say that this shot up in my cluster of favorites, alongside Audre Lorde's The Black Unicorn and Aja Monet's My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter
How could you make love to him in an elevator
you say. But it was a freight elevator
I say, it went up very slowly, you could lock
it between floors. Besides that was a decade
ago, I was more adventurist then. Oh, you say,
so you wouldn’t fuck me in an elevator, I see.
I like my comfort better now, I say, but you
are my only comfort. Have you an elevator in mind?
Also, the last 15 poems, starting with the eponymous The moon is always female are really damn witchy in tone and vibe, inspired by the Celtic astrology calendar. Really gorgeous stuff, I will be reading this over and over again.
Lonely, I am not alone, but my mind surrounds
me with demon whispers, skeptical ghosts.
I prefer to quarrel with those I truly love.
March 5, 2008
To Have Without Holding
Marge Piercy
Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.
It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.
It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.
I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.
Marge Piercy
Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.
It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.
It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.
I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.
December 16, 2022
A couple weeks ago, a friend posted a poem from this collection, "To Have Without Holding", on facebook. I was shook! That poem, which I hadn't really thought about consciously for 30 or so years, brought back a flood of memories of my personal journey to a feminist understanding of relationships. Back then it was called "free love"---now we've de-hippie-fied it to "ethical non monogamy"---but it's the same. It's a journey and an unlearning and a reinterpreting. This poem encapsulates the transformation so precisely---I remember the feeling of "you glow on the street like a neon raspeberry", and I remember the feeling of first reading it in her words.
So I immediately went to grab my copy off my library shelf, and when I couldn't find it, I ordered a new one.
The rest of the poems in this collection are mostly delights, though not many come close to the power of "To Have..." for me. There are gentle poems about gardening and cats and the moon, and fierce poems about feminism and women's liberation and desire. There are many arresting images and turns of phrase that leave me breathless. I remember reading my original copy with a highlighter in hand, marking stanzas that I would go back to again and again.
It feels good and right to have this volume in my library again, and to revisit these words that helped shape my way of being in the world.
So I immediately went to grab my copy off my library shelf, and when I couldn't find it, I ordered a new one.
The rest of the poems in this collection are mostly delights, though not many come close to the power of "To Have..." for me. There are gentle poems about gardening and cats and the moon, and fierce poems about feminism and women's liberation and desire. There are many arresting images and turns of phrase that leave me breathless. I remember reading my original copy with a highlighter in hand, marking stanzas that I would go back to again and again.
It feels good and right to have this volume in my library again, and to revisit these words that helped shape my way of being in the world.
February 17, 2016
Nearly every time I've gone to the bookstore, I've ended up with this book.
Our first meeting was a bit of an accident: I'd actually been looking for something by Sylvia Plath but got distracted by Piercy's title. That statement--the absoluteness--was wholly seductive, wholly haunting.
So, instead of buying it, I siphoned bits of its beauty, year after year. For five or so years this went on. No matter what or who I'd intended to buy, I'd come back to this, read enough to satiate myself and bid a fated adieu.
I guess I never bought the book because I enjoyed our clandestine affair. When I'd open it after not having seen it for weeks or months at a time, every word was more final. With just a few words, I'd get full and leave full, like the moon. But it almost felt wrong, buying it--stealing the moon away like that. I wanted to leave it there for someone else to happen upon, just in case.
The other day, though, it happened again. I found it, right where it'd always been, and thought, well.. maybe it's really been waiting for me this whole time. And there's just no sense putting off the inevitable..
Our first meeting was a bit of an accident: I'd actually been looking for something by Sylvia Plath but got distracted by Piercy's title. That statement--the absoluteness--was wholly seductive, wholly haunting.
So, instead of buying it, I siphoned bits of its beauty, year after year. For five or so years this went on. No matter what or who I'd intended to buy, I'd come back to this, read enough to satiate myself and bid a fated adieu.
I guess I never bought the book because I enjoyed our clandestine affair. When I'd open it after not having seen it for weeks or months at a time, every word was more final. With just a few words, I'd get full and leave full, like the moon. But it almost felt wrong, buying it--stealing the moon away like that. I wanted to leave it there for someone else to happen upon, just in case.
The other day, though, it happened again. I found it, right where it'd always been, and thought, well.. maybe it's really been waiting for me this whole time. And there's just no sense putting off the inevitable..
August 15, 2024
3.5
Uuhhhh idk how I feel about this
Some quotes that stood out to me
(I did not consistently keep track of this throughout my time reading soooo, not necessarily my fave but some things I highlighted)
“I will choose what enters me, what becomes of my flesh. Without choice, no politics, no ethics lives.”
“A woman is screaming and I hear her. A woman is bleeding and I see her bleeding from the mouth, the womb, the breasts in a fountain of dark blood of dismaldaily tedious sorrow quite palatable to the taste of the mighty and taken for granted that the bread of domesticity be baked of our flesh, that the hearth be built of our bones of animals kept for meat and milk, that we open and lie under and weep.”
“Never even at knife point have I wanted or willing to be or become a man. I want only to be myself and free.”
Uuhhhh idk how I feel about this
Some quotes that stood out to me
(I did not consistently keep track of this throughout my time reading soooo, not necessarily my fave but some things I highlighted)
“I will choose what enters me, what becomes of my flesh. Without choice, no politics, no ethics lives.”
“A woman is screaming and I hear her. A woman is bleeding and I see her bleeding from the mouth, the womb, the breasts in a fountain of dark blood of dismaldaily tedious sorrow quite palatable to the taste of the mighty and taken for granted that the bread of domesticity be baked of our flesh, that the hearth be built of our bones of animals kept for meat and milk, that we open and lie under and weep.”
“Never even at knife point have I wanted or willing to be or become a man. I want only to be myself and free.”
June 11, 2024
the poems were either perfect or insufferable, nothing in between
July 14, 2022
i have never seen a collection derail so quickly. i was obsessed with the second poem “when a friend dies” and combined with how “night flight,” the next poem, concluded, i was ready to buy this! thankfully i kept reading because oh my word. some of the worst poems i’ve ever read. “intimacy” specifically was when i started reading less carefully because it was just painfully melodramatic and childish—maybe i’m misreading the tone? i just feel like this collection lost its voice early on and never recovered and the last section was just. not for me lol
October 9, 2007
I have this book in two volumes because I read it so much it cracked down the middle and split in half.
This was one of the poets I read in early high school that really touched me. Her poems were really helpful in sorting certain things out in my teenage mind. I haven't read through it lately, but I still have vivid memories of the poems.
This was one of the poets I read in early high school that really touched me. Her poems were really helpful in sorting certain things out in my teenage mind. I haven't read through it lately, but I still have vivid memories of the poems.
March 9, 2014
That's the stuff. So much wisdom and beauty here, and so much... recognition of the way life really is, if you're a woman, anyway. Favorites: "The Inside Chance" and (for more than 20 years now, and probably forever) "Right to Life."
January 2, 2024
Lots of beautiful images and messages. Some of my favorite poems were “The doughty oaks”, “For strong women”, “For the young who want to”, “Right to life”, “The sabbath of mutual respect”, and “Crescent moon like a canoe”. I enjoyed the themes especially in the second part with the lunar cycle. Very well written and eye opening as well.
January 4, 2023
best poetry book i’ve ever read.
July 2, 2023
(4.25) Wonderful, meandering collection of beautiful poetry. This gets better as you read it. Some absolutely lovely poems that brought me to tears. Just my taste. She writes wonderfully about girlhood, womanhood, sex, friendship, and mundane pleasures of life. <3
January 31, 2022
found most of this collection poetically & politically dull.
July 2, 2023
(4.5/5) — i’m finally trying to read again
February 22, 2023
christ this is so beautiful, i'm not normally one for poetry but i thoroughly enjoyed this
July 2, 2024
As I read I felt I was listening to an extremely wise woman looking back at her experiences in love, solitude, and disappointment and remembering - with a clarity that for most has been numbed by the passage of ages -- the guttural sensation of systemic, everyday violence.
Bitterness permeates some of these poems but not all of them. She describes this type of pain as animalistic, needy, furious, innate... Rather than being spread over everything, though, this hunger stalks into our yards after having been gone for two years and "harries the weak in the long dark." A beastly obsession to feed and protect anything soft that's still ours. Stunning.
And it's true these displays of power so often happen in darkness, shrouded in invisibility. Bitterness doesn't do anything to the other person, it just festers inside of you and then mutes and dulls before ever finding its way into the world. I was struck by the similarities in Piercy's life and my own when it comes to sorrow, despite her being much older than I am. I wanted to cry when she described her own bitterness as having been inherited from her mother as a sort of weapon against the world's cruelty. A core belief that the world is cruel thrusts division upon every social artifact. Piercy has more power than her mother did so she may look intently at that which enrages the heart, but she cannot, anymore, co orbit the world with her mother. Such loneliness. The pain surely waxes and wanes throughout the seasons of our lives yet always, it is within this place that power and reawakening are to be found.
Bitterness permeates some of these poems but not all of them. She describes this type of pain as animalistic, needy, furious, innate... Rather than being spread over everything, though, this hunger stalks into our yards after having been gone for two years and "harries the weak in the long dark." A beastly obsession to feed and protect anything soft that's still ours. Stunning.
And it's true these displays of power so often happen in darkness, shrouded in invisibility. Bitterness doesn't do anything to the other person, it just festers inside of you and then mutes and dulls before ever finding its way into the world. I was struck by the similarities in Piercy's life and my own when it comes to sorrow, despite her being much older than I am. I wanted to cry when she described her own bitterness as having been inherited from her mother as a sort of weapon against the world's cruelty. A core belief that the world is cruel thrusts division upon every social artifact. Piercy has more power than her mother did so she may look intently at that which enrages the heart, but she cannot, anymore, co orbit the world with her mother. Such loneliness. The pain surely waxes and wanes throughout the seasons of our lives yet always, it is within this place that power and reawakening are to be found.
November 9, 2015
Took me a while to warm up to this collection, but it did finally pick up speed. I love the abortion poems, especially those about the clinic workers. It makes the issue real by linking it to real people who don't have any medical stake in what's going on---they're just doing their jobs. Piercy's feminist tone is back again but softened in the decades after To Be of Use. Still love her, though!
April 27, 2018
The rating would actually be a 2.5 as the imagery is good. I really expected to love this collection but it was just too focused on the negative and it brought me down. My favourite poetry brings me to a quiet place of thinking and pondering but this brought me to a place of despair and that is not a collection that I am going to keep in my possession and visit again.
February 16, 2010
a strong woman is... that poem alone helped me through a tough mental period, i turn to it every time that i feel that stress coming on again or when i see an other strong woman losing their footing on the world
December 27, 2013
POEMS ABOUT FEMINISM, NON-MONOGAMY AND CATS. THIS. STUNNING.
December 18, 2022
"Until we are all strong together, a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid."
December 12, 2023
If the “women are born with pain built in” scene from Fleabag was a poetry collection, it would be this book.
Piercy’s poems are heartfelt, natural, introspective, and unabashedly feminine in this collection. The Moon Is Always Female is broken up into two parts: Hand Games and The Lunar Calendar. The collection begins with Hand Games, which depict “artifacts of loving in a personal way,” as Piercy says on the back cover. These poems feel real and tangible, clear depictions of harvest and cultivation not just of the earth, but in relationships too. The second half, The Lunar Calendar, is more abstract but equally intimate, calling upon women’s pasts, menstruation, and motherhood as key themes.
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve read a poetry collection and I’m so glad I picked this up! I found this lovely collection tucked in the back corner of a library book sale, and the cover drew me in immediately.
I loved the voice in these poems and the wittiness sprinkled throughout. The structure of this really worked well for me, too. Hand Games was so descriptive and evocative, I felt like I was walking through the changing seasons hand-in-hand with the poems. The Lunar Calendar section was profound as well, and I enjoyed the mediations on menstruation and abortion rights.The only poems I would say that felt misplaced or took me out of the collection were the ones that reflected on being a writer and what published work looks like. They didn’t totally fit the natural imagery and introspective tone I found throughout the collection, although I did really enjoy the poems about the ex poet lover (ladies if you’ve ever had the misfortune of dating an english/film major you gotta read “The inquisition” right now)
Some of my favorite poems from this collection include “Under red Aries“, “Attack of the squash people”, and “Cutting the grapes free.”
Piercy’s poems are heartfelt, natural, introspective, and unabashedly feminine in this collection. The Moon Is Always Female is broken up into two parts: Hand Games and The Lunar Calendar. The collection begins with Hand Games, which depict “artifacts of loving in a personal way,” as Piercy says on the back cover. These poems feel real and tangible, clear depictions of harvest and cultivation not just of the earth, but in relationships too. The second half, The Lunar Calendar, is more abstract but equally intimate, calling upon women’s pasts, menstruation, and motherhood as key themes.
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve read a poetry collection and I’m so glad I picked this up! I found this lovely collection tucked in the back corner of a library book sale, and the cover drew me in immediately.
I loved the voice in these poems and the wittiness sprinkled throughout. The structure of this really worked well for me, too. Hand Games was so descriptive and evocative, I felt like I was walking through the changing seasons hand-in-hand with the poems. The Lunar Calendar section was profound as well, and I enjoyed the mediations on menstruation and abortion rights.The only poems I would say that felt misplaced or took me out of the collection were the ones that reflected on being a writer and what published work looks like. They didn’t totally fit the natural imagery and introspective tone I found throughout the collection, although I did really enjoy the poems about the ex poet lover (ladies if you’ve ever had the misfortune of dating an english/film major you gotta read “The inquisition” right now)
Some of my favorite poems from this collection include “Under red Aries“, “Attack of the squash people”, and “Cutting the grapes free.”
August 2, 2021
Although often in this vale
of razorblades I have wished I could
put on and take off my sex like a dress
and why not? Do men wear their sex
always? The priest, the doctor, the teacher
all tell us they come to their professions
neuter as clams and the truth is
when I work I am pure as an angel
tiger and clear is my eye and hot
my brain and silent all the whining
grunting piglets of the appetites.
In this collection of poems, Marge Piercy blatantly addresses issues which more often than not get brushed under the carpet. She redefines womanhood, femininity, relationship, and loss through those enthralling verses. And I feel that passage above strikes me the most. For sometimes I wish people would stop putting their concern to the fact that I am a woman, instead I desire to be seen as another capable human being filled with emotions and feelings.
One of the fascinating aspects of this book is the last poem titled “O!” - which I presume depicts the full-moon stage. Not sure if it’s true but I will just leave myself think it is.
Praise our choices, sisters, for
each doorway open to us was taken by
squads of fighting women who paid
years of trouble and struggle,
who paid their wombs, their sleep, their lives that we might walk through these gates upright.
Doorways are sacred to women for we
are the doorways of life and we must choose what comes in and what goes out. Freedom
is our real abundance.
October 18, 2019
my personal favourite poems were
excursions, incursions
under red aries
the long death
for strong women
a new constellation
argiope
the moon is always female
right to life
the sabbath of mutual respect
crescent moon like a canoe
however, all of the poems in this collection were worthy and weighed heavily on my mind. unsettling and true, i would strongly recommend this to any woman. marge piercy fucking gets it, and i really appreciate her for connecting womanhood and nature, and intertwining it into a critique of misogyny and female violence
excursions, incursions
under red aries
the long death
for strong women
a new constellation
argiope
the moon is always female
right to life
the sabbath of mutual respect
crescent moon like a canoe
however, all of the poems in this collection were worthy and weighed heavily on my mind. unsettling and true, i would strongly recommend this to any woman. marge piercy fucking gets it, and i really appreciate her for connecting womanhood and nature, and intertwining it into a critique of misogyny and female violence
August 9, 2023
Wow! What a terrific collection of poems by Marge Piercy! The poems are replete with introspection, feminism, womanhood, and surrealism. I truly loved the long poems too. They wouldn't test your patience if you are a lover of rich poetry.
My favourites:
1. Limited but fertile possibilities are offered by this brochure
2. Will we work together?
3. Under red Aries
4. Intimacy
5. For strong women
6. From the tool and die shop
7. For the you who want to
8. The moon is always female
9. Right to life
10. The sabbath of mutual respect
11. Crescent moon like a canoe
My favourites:
1. Limited but fertile possibilities are offered by this brochure
2. Will we work together?
3. Under red Aries
4. Intimacy
5. For strong women
6. From the tool and die shop
7. For the you who want to
8. The moon is always female
9. Right to life
10. The sabbath of mutual respect
11. Crescent moon like a canoe
May 19, 2022
La autora nació en los 30’s y el libro se publicó en los 80’s y, sin embargo, yo sentí que estaba leyendo la actualidad. Lo anterior es bueno cuando los significados y temas de sus poemas eran muy avanzados para su época. Malo cuando su prosa me parecía a poesía adolescente. El imaginario es maravilloso, pero no conecté con sus letras. No obstante, el libro es valioso, sobre todo la segunda parte, porque permite conocer la experiencia y el pensamiento de una de las autoras más reconocidas.
July 11, 2024
4.5 stars
love! many were very easy to connect to. these poems stuck out to me: arriving, the damn cast, the wrong anger, the low road, season of hard wind, the doughty oaks, arofa, argiope, for the young who want to, the moon is always female, right to life, may apple
“i find it easy to admire in trees
what depresses me in people.”
“i prefer to quarrel with those i truly love.”
both sections had something to draw from. would read more from her!
love! many were very easy to connect to. these poems stuck out to me: arriving, the damn cast, the wrong anger, the low road, season of hard wind, the doughty oaks, arofa, argiope, for the young who want to, the moon is always female, right to life, may apple
“i find it easy to admire in trees
what depresses me in people.”
“i prefer to quarrel with those i truly love.”
both sections had something to draw from. would read more from her!
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