Marge Piercy | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1936-03-31)March 31, 1936 (age 89) |
| Education | University of Michigan (BA) Northwestern University (MA) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Spouse | |
| Website | margepiercy |
Marge Piercy (born March 31, 1936) is an Americanprogressive activist,feminist, and writer. Her work includesWoman on the Edge of Time;He, She and It, which won the 1993Arthur C. Clarke Award; andGone to Soldiers, aNew York Times Best Seller and a sweeping historical novel set during World War II. Piercy's work is rooted in her Jewish heritage,Marxist social and political activism, and feminist ideals.
Marge Piercy was born inDetroit, Michigan,[1] to Bert Piercy and Robert Piercy.[2][3] While her father was non-religious from aPresbyterian background, she was raised Jewish by her mother and herOrthodox Jewish maternal grandmother, who gave Piercy the Hebrew name of Marah.[4]
On her childhood and Jewish identity, Piercy said: "Jews and blacks were always lumped together when I grew up. I didn’t grow up 'white.' Jews weren't white. My first boyfriend was black. I didn't find out I was white until we spent time in Baltimore and I went to a segregated high school. I can't express how weird it was. Then I just figured they didn't know I was Jewish."[5]
An indifferent student in her early childhood, Piercy developed a love of books when she came down with theGerman measles andrheumatic 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".[6]
Upon graduation fromMackenzie High School, Piercy became the first in her family to attend college, studying at theUniversity of Michigan, where she received a B.A. degree in 1957.[1][7] Winning aHopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction (1957) enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France. She earned an M.A. degree fromNorthwestern University in 1958.
After graduating from college, Piercy and her first husband went to France, then returned to the United States. They divorced when Piercy was 23.[4] Living inChicago, she supported herself working various part-time jobs while unsuccessfully trying to get her novels published. It was during this time that Piercy realized she wanted to write fiction that focused on politics, feminism, and working-class people.[4] After her second marriage, she became involved in the organizationStudents for a Democratic Society. In 1968, Piercy's first book of poetry,Breaking Camp, was published, and her first novel was accepted for publication that same year.[8]
At a young age, Piercy was married to her first husband, a French Jewishphysicist. However, the marriage failed when she was 23; Piercy attributes this to his expectations of gender roles in marriage.[4] In 1962, she married her second husband, Robert Shapiro, a computer scientist. They divorced, and Piercy married her current husband, Ira Wood.[9] She and her husband live inWellfleet, MA.[10] Piercy designed their home, where the couple have been living since the 1970s.[5] She runs Leapfrog Press with her novelist husband.[11]
Piercy was involved in thecivil rights movement,New Left, andStudents for a Democratic Society.[4][12] She is a feminist,environmentalist,Marxist, social, andanti-war activist.[1]
In 1977, Piercy became an associate of theWomen's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP),[13] an American nonprofit publishing organization that works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media.
In 2013, Piercy signed an open letter, described as an "open statement from 48 radical feminists from seven countries". The letter may be interpreted to endorseTERF ideology because it defends the right to exclude transgender women from "women-only conferences".[14][15] In 2024, however, she wrote on her blog explicitly supporting trans people. "I can’t understand the anger at trans people and LGBTQ etc in general.... Whyshouldn’t someone decide they’ve been assigned the wrong gender? What business is it of governments?".[16]
Piercy is the author of more than seventeen volumes of poems, among themThe Moon Is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) andThe Art of Blessing the Day (1999). She has published fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her current—and third—husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one non-fiction book, and one memoir.[1] She contributed the pieces "The Grand Coolie Damn" and "Song of the Fucked Duck" to the celebrated 1970 anthologySisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from The Women's Liberation Movement, edited byRobin Morgan.[17]
Piercy's novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. WhileBody of Glass (published in the United States asHe, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won theArthur C. Clarke Award,City of Darkness, City of Light was set during theFrench Revolution. Other novels, such asSummer People andThe Longings of Women, are set during modern times. All of her books share a focus on women's lives.
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) mixes atime travel story with issues of social justice, feminism, and the treatment of thementally ill. This novel is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic.[18]William Gibson has creditedWoman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace ofCyberpunk, as Piercy mentions in an introduction toBody of Glass.Body of Glass (He, She and It, 1991) itself postulates an environmentally ruined world dominated by sprawling mega-cities and a futuristic version of the Internet, through which Piercy weaves elements ofJewish mysticism and the legend of theGolem, 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 inGone to Soldiers is the diary of French teenager Jacqueline Levy-Monot, who is also followed in the third person after her capture by the Nazis.[19]
Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personalfree verse and often centered on feminist and social issues. Her work shows commitment to social change—what she might call[original research?], inJudaic terms,tikkun olam, or the repair of the world. It is rooted in story, the wheel of the Jewish year, and a range oflandscapes and settings.
Piercy contributed poems to the journalKalliope: A Journal of Women's Art and Literature[20] andEarth's Daughters.[21] Piercy also contributed to the collection of essays by women leaders in the climate movement,All We Can Save.[22]
