The Eyes of Texas and the Nays

A new poem by Marge Piercy.

“The World Was Given Us to Fix It”

This article explores the ecopoetry written by three women poets who also identify themselves as Jewish poets: Alicia Ostriker, Marge Piercy and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky. It examines whether they employ any or some/all of the “emancipatory strategies” characteristic of the ecofeminist re-imagination of nature and human relationships with the natural world, seeking to answer several questions: How far can these poems be considered part of eco-Judaism? Does the fact that their authors are women also make them ecofeminist works? Does the poets’ Jewish feminist identity contribute to their ecopoetic call for ecological change?

The great indifference

A new poem by Marge Piercy.

Oppression towards Women as Depicted in Marge Piercy’s Selected Poems

This present study would like to examine how women are oppressed by the patriarchal society in the selected poems written by one of the contemporary American female writers, Marge Piercy. Marge Piercy is particularly known as a female writer as well as a feminist activist. She has written numerous works, including novels and poetry books, which explore issues about women. Piercy’s poems are mostly known to be simple and vivid. Observing the use of figurative language and the diction in Piercy’s selected poems, entitled “A Work of Artifice” and “Barbie Doll”, in the light of feminist criticism, this article would like to show how oppression is done towards women and how it results in the silencing, shaping, and subordinating of women. In the poems, the oppression is mostly operated subtly and systematically through various cultural institutions, such as education, family, and media. Women, as a result, are trained to believe in the voice of the patriarchal society and to behave following what the patriarchal society demands. The long-practiced oppression has hindered women to develop to their fullest as human beings. The poems can be read as a medium to voice women’s experiences and to criticize the established patriarchal system and its oppression towards women.

The legacy

A new poem by Marge Piercy.

Nostalgia for what never was

A new poem by Marge Piercy.

I wake to the possible

A new poem by Marge Piercy.

History comes in bad cycles

A new poem by Marge Piercy.

The great denial

A new poem by Marge Piercy.

“Hope as the Engine for Imagining Utopia”: A Dream of a World Beyond Gender

By analyzing the depiction of androgyny in Marge Piercy’s science fiction novels in the context of gender performativity and constructionism, this article demonstrates that androgyny may be used as a tool for deconstructing gender roles. Arguably, Piercy proposes a new, non-essentialist vision of humankind through the creation of androgynous or agender human and cybernetic bodies. Moreover, the article substantiates how the images of utopian worlds, which present futuristic hope, are connected with the postgender idea of gender transcendence, while the dystopian ones seem to be strongly related to gender essentialism. „Utopia jako nadzieja”: w stronę świata poza granicami płci Poprzez analizę przedstawienia androginii w powieściach science fiction autorstwa Marge Piercy w kontekście performatywności płci i konstrukcjonizmu niniejszy artykuł pokazuje, że androginia może być wykorzystywana jako narzędzie dekonstrukcji ról płciowych. Piercy proponuje nową, nie esencjonalistyczną wizję ludzkości poprzez tworzenie androgynicznych lub agenderowych ludzkich i cybernetycznych ciał. Ponadto artykuł ukazuje, w jaki sposób obrazy utopijnych światów, które niosą z sobą futurystyczną nadzieję, wiążą się z postgenderową ideą transcendencji płci, podczas gdy dystopijne światy wydają się silnie powiązane z esencjalizmem płciowym.