The Crooked Inheritance: Poems

by Marge Piercy

Overview

An “exquisite . . . spot on” (The Hudson Review) collection of poems from one of our best-loved and best-selling poets that is both personal, with poetry about love, nature and reflections on the stages of life, and political, ranging from the war in Iraq and Katrina to concerns such as women’s rights and the poet’s childhood in Detroit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307494665
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/28/2013
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Marge Piercy is the author of sixteen previous books of poetry. She has also written seventeen novels, including Woman on the Edge of Time; Gone to Soldiers; He, She and It; City of Darkness, City of Light; and Sex Wars, as well as a memoir entitled Sleeping with Cats. With Ira Wood, she is the coauthor of So You Want to Write: How to Master the Craft of Fiction and the Personal Narrative, now in its second edition. Her work has been translated into sixteen languages, and she has won many honors, including, in 1990, the Golden Rose, the oldest poetry award in the country. She lives on Cape Cod with her husband, Ira Wood, the novelist and publisher of Leapfrog Press.

Editorial Reviews

Piercy's 16 books of accessible, sometimes outspokenly feminist poetry, along with her many novels and nonfiction books, have gained a wide and loyal following. This big collection of somewhat talky new poems may not disappoint her devotees, but seems unlikely to add to her reputation. Familiar subjects political injustice, familial inheritance, Jewish heritage, the pleasures of cooking and gardening, the troubles of later life get treated, mostly, in predictable, low-pressure ways. When Piercy (Colors Passing Through Us, 2003) takes clothes that don't fit from her "closet of doom," "The resale shop/ is already waiting.../ ...and I feel my own unplanned/ obsolescence creep into my flesh." Antiwar poems focus on an oblivious America, where "shopping is our favorite entertainment." As for Hurricane Katrina, "Baby is crying/ Grandma is dying/ and that dirty water is getting higher." Reminiscences of Detroit, where Piercy grew up, and a sequence of poems on Jewish liturgical occasions (meant, perhaps, for a congregation to use) stand out, and Piercy's honesty is always welcome. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Piercy’s honesty is always welcome.” —Publishers Weekly

“There is always some secret gem hidden inside these poems . . . Piercy is not shy about using stark language, and her tone is unusual and refreshing. Rather than sounding preachy, her use of repetition adds to the sense of rhythm and makes her writing sing even as it informs.” —Lilith

From the Publisher