MPR’s Nancy Fushan interviews poet and activist Marge Piercy. Segment also includes Piercy reading two of her poems.

Transcript:

(00:00:00) Marge Piercy is a name. Well known among writers. Well known among political activists and only now after two decades of work is Marge Piercy gaining recognition from the media and Publishing Empires. It's easy to understand her instant rapport with Young Writers and the wisdom inherent in her poetic summation of the creative struggle. You have to like it better than being loved and yet Pearcy winces when someone suggests that writing is involved in some Mythic inner Journey which enslaves the

(00:00:28) artist no, come on. I know what you're trying to make me say which is righteous lot is a very hard one and that's nonsense to be paid for writing is wonderful and you know, it's hard work. But so what who do you think makes a living on easy work in the society except people who get paid a huge amount of money who just sit and make other people work

(00:00:44) an activist who spent the 60s in the Civil Rights and anti-war movements Pearcy has consistently combined her art with her politics. However, she makes the distinction between art and propaganda while political values in fiction and poetry are necessary Pearcy says, Are often underlying and indirect

(00:01:02) both can raise Consciousness and I think both can alter how we think about what we experienced. Both of them can give us validation

(00:01:11) such is the case with her newest book headed for the bestseller list Vida. It is a mixture of suspense love and politics a novel which follows the lives of American political fugitives who go underground in the 1970s. The alternatives are also emphasized in throughout her poetry as in the soon-to-be published volume the The Moon is always female this poem from the new collection deals with changing directions.

(00:01:35) How do we know where we are going? How do we know where we are headed to we in fact or hope for a hunch arrive? You can only criticize the comfortable say you don't know what you want. But we do We have swung in the green for vendors of jungle trees. We have squatted on cloud gray Granite hillsides where every leaf drips. We have crossed Badlands with a son as sharp as Flint. We have paddled into the tall dark scene canoes. We always knew peace plenty the gentle wallow of intimacy a bit of Saturday night and not too much Monday morning a chance to choose a chance to grow up. With the say no and yes pretties and dignity and occasional jolt of Truth the human brain wrinkled slug nose, like a computer like a violinist like a bloodhound like a frog we remember backwards a little and sometimes for words, but mostly we think in the ebbing circles or Rock makes on the water. The salmon hurtling Upstream seeks the taste of the Waters of its birth. But the Sea Bird on its 4,000 mile Trek follows charts mapped and its genes the brightness the angle the sighting of the star shines in the brain luring till inner constellation matches outer. The start block rocks the Island beaches of wave worn Pebbles where it will winter look right to it months after its set forth. It says home at last and settles in my spine a title clock tilts and drips in the moon pulls blood from my womb driven as a migrating Falk and I can be blown off course yet. If I turn back, it feels wrong navigating by chart and chance and passion. I will know the shape of the mountains of freedom. I will know

(00:03:45) Vision intensity and crafts Hallmarks of writing that Piercy says she seeks in other people's work obviously parts of Own work as well. And there's also the element of humor evident in this reading of her poem a beauty. I would suffer for

(00:04:00) last week a doctor told me anemic after an operation to eat ordered to Indulgence given a Papal dispensation to run amok in Zabar's yet. I know that in two weeks a month. I will have in my nostrils not the Savor of roasting Goose not the burnt sugar of caramel topping the saint Honore cake. Not the Pumpernickel bearing up the sweet butter the sturgeon but again the scorched wire burnt rubber smell of willpower living with a brakes on I want to pass into the boudoirs of Rubens women. I want to dance graceful in my tonnage like poussin nymphs those melon bellies those vast ripening thighs those Their beds of forearms those buttocks Placid and Grocers hippopotamus my how I would bend myself to that standard of beauty. I'll Faithfully I will consume waffles and sausage for breakfast with qua songs on the side how dutifully I would eat for supper the black bean soup followed by the fish course the meat course and the Bavarian cream season at intervals during the day, I would suffer an occasional a a player for the sake of appearance poet and author Marge

(00:05:30) Piercy. I'm Nancy Fusion.