The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
...
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

(Marge Piercy (b. 1936), U.S. poet, novelist, and political activist. "To Be of Use," lines 19-22, 26-27 (1973).)

I have no connections here; only gusty collisions,
rootless seedlings forced into bloom, that collapse.
...
I am the Visiting Poet: a real unicorn,
a wind-up plush dodo, a wax museum of the Movement.
People want to push the buttons and see me glow.

(Marge Piercy (b. 1936), U.S. poet, novelist, and political activist. "Three Weeks in a State of Loneliness," lines 22-23, 28-30 (1976). On a "Visiting Poet" stint at the University of Kansas. Piercy had been a prominent activist in the movement opposing the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War and had written many political poems.)

The token woman carries a bouquet of hothouse celery
and a stenographer's pad; she will take
the minutes, perk the coffee, smile
like a plastic daisy and put out
the black cat of her sensuous anger
to howl on the fence all night.

(Marge Piercy (b. 1936), U.S. poet, novelist, and political activist. "The Token Woman," lines 4-9 (1976).)

Only when we break the mirror and climb into our vision,
only when we are the wind together streaming and singing,
only in the dream we become with our bones for spears,
we are real at last
and wake.

(Marge Piercy (b. 1936), U.S. poet, novelist, and political activist. "The Provocation of the Dream," lines 81-85 (1976). Piercy was a prominent activist in the movement opposing the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. These are the last lines in the last poem of her first post- Vietnam War collection, Living in the Open.)

This nation is founded on blood like a city on swamps
yet its dream has been beautiful and sometimes just
that now grows brutal and heavy as a burned out star.

(Marge Piercy (b. 1936), U.S. poet, novelist, and political activist. "The Peaceable Kingdom," lines 53-55 (1968). Written during the Vietnam War; Piercy was a prominent opponent of the United States' involvement in that war.)

She never felt much in common with gay men; it was like telling her she ought to feel empathy with child molesters because they were both defined by the law as sexual deviants.

(Marge Piercy (b. 1936), U.S. poet, novelist. The High Cost of Living, ch. 3 (1978). Referring to the character Leslie.)

The politics of the exile are fever,
revenge, daydream,
theater of the aging convalescent.
You wait in the wings and rehearse.
You wait and wait.

(Marge Piercy (b. 1936), U.S. poet, novelist, and political activist. "The Organizer's Bogeyman," lines 20-24 (1969). Written during the Vietnam War, on expulsion from an activist organization governed by radical political ideology. Piercy was prominent among the opponents of American involvement in that war.)

Remember that every son had a mother
whose beloved son he was,
and every woman had a mother
whose beloved son she wasn't.

(Marge Piercy (20th century), U.S. writer. "Doing It Differently," Circles on the Water (1892).)

Loving feels lonely in a violent world,
irrelevant to people burning like last year's weed
with bellies distended, with fish throats agape
and flesh melting down to glue.
We can no longer shut out the screaming
That leaks through the ventilation system ...

(Marge Piercy (b. 1936), U.S. poet, novelist, and political activist. "Community," lines 1-6 (1969). Referring to television and photographic images of the Vietnam War, which was at its height when this was written. Piercy was a prominent activist in the antiwar movement.)

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 (b. 1936), U.S. poet and novelist. "For the Young Who Want To," lines 31-36 (1980).)