Marge Piercy doesn't pull her punches. She says what she feels and her poetry has a brutal honesty that doesn't shy away from calling people out on their stupidity. But I also found that she has a love of nature and the natural world, she thoughtfully looks back at relationships and painful moments and expresses herself with finely crafted poems that I really liked. Similar to my recent reading of one of Ursula LeGuin's books of poetry, I had only ever read Piercy's fiction and was unaware until recently that she even wrote poetry.

I learned about this book from reading a poem by Piercy called The rented lakes of my childhood which Ken Craft discussed on his blog. I think I liked it so much because, like Marge Piercy, I remember going with my family to various Michigan lakes and visiting family or friends in the inevitable, falling-down cottage that was their summer rental. This poem moved me to find the book which I was able to sleuth with my good friend, google.

Made in Detroit is divided into 6 chapters with poems in broad topic areas ranging from growing up in Detroit, nature, politics of the moment, Judaism, and possibly autobiographical poems about the past and past relationships. It was hard for me to be selective about what to quote here as I enjoyed so many of her poems. This is a book of poetry I would certainly like to own and it has spurred me to look out for more of Piercy's books.

One of my favorites is Little Diurnal Tragedies. Over the last 5 to 6 years my wife and I have spent a lot of time on the road taking our kids back and forth to various areas of the state of Michigan for college. Right now, we are just going back and forth to East Lansing but every time I am struck by the number of animals lying dead by the side of the road....it just bothers me more and more, especially knowing what is happening with the crashing populations of large and small animals throughout the world. Marge Piercy's poem expresses this tragedy well....

Little Diurnal Tragedies

Mercy for the dog lying broken
backed in the road while the car
that hit it speeds off.

Mercy for the wren baby pushed
from the nest by the bigger hatchling--
egg the cowbird deposited.

Mercy for the green turtles caught
in the sudden cold of the bay
when the nor'easter blows.

Mercy for the pregnant cat thrown
out to starve, nursing her five kittens
among garbage and broken glass.

Mercy for the geese the golfers
want poisoned because they disturb
the green beside already polluted pools.

Mercy for the birds trying to fly
south on ancient routes, blinded
by our lights, dying on skyscrapers.

All around us are creatures we barely
notice, trying to preserve their only
lives among our machinery,

among our smog and smoke, inside
our radiation, among the houses and
roads built on their once habitats.

This poem perfectly expresses what many are thinking right now in this US that is slowly turning fiction into fact...think Margaret Atwood.

Ethics for Republicans

An embryo is precious;
a woman is a vessel.

A fertilized egg is a person;
a woman is indentured to it.

An embryo is sacred until birth.
After that, he/she is on their own.

Abortion is murder. Rape,
incest are means to an end:

that precious fertilized egg
housed in an expendable body.

Let us make babies and babies
and babies; children are something

else, probably future criminals,
probably welfare cheats whose

education hikes taxes. You
can freely dispose of them. ( )

After anxiously awaiting Marge Piercy's latest book of poetry, I was not disappointed. A master of her craft, she effortlessly evokes places and emotions that stir one's own memories. ( )