In which Marge Piercy's mother gives us her recipe for the Hunger Moon
- Reading, books 2016, 136.
131. The Hunger Moon, by Marge Piercy, is an extensive selected poems from her nine published volumes 1980-2010 plus new poems. When I began reading it was book 124! Ms Piercy is one of my essential contemporary poets (probably top five) because I can pick up almost any of her many books and hand it to someone in full confidence that they'll find something in it worth reading. [/Gillian Clarke, Grace Nichols, UA Fanthorpe, Marge Piercy, and Naomi Shihab Nye]. (5/5 genius at work) One complete poem and some extracts, but it's impossible to cover her full range here....
• My mother gives me her recipe, by Marge Piercy
Take some flour. Oh, I don't know,
like two-three cups, and you cut
in the butter. Now some women
they make it with shortening,
but I say butter, even though
that means you had to have fish, see?
You cut up some apples. Not those
stupid sweet ones. Apples for the cake,
they have to have some bite, you know?
A little sour in the sweet, like love.
You slice them into little moons.
No, no! Like half or crescent
moons. You aren't listening.
You mix sugar and cinnamon and cloves,
some women use allspice, till it's dark
and you stir in the apples. You coat
every little moon. Did I say you add
milk? Oh, just till it feels right.
Use your hands. Milk in the cake part!
Then you pat it into a pan, I like
round ones, but who cares?
I forgot to say you add baking powder.
Did I forget a little lemon on the apples?
Then you just bake it. Well, till it's done
of course. Did I remember you place
the apples in rows? You can make
a pattern, like a weave. It's pretty
that way. I like things pretty.
It's just a simple cake.
Any fool can make it
except your aunt. I
gave her the recipe
but she never
got it right.
~ From Stone, Paper, Knife ~
• Habit’s fine dust chokes us.
As in a city the streetlights
and neon signs prevent us from viewing
the stars, so the casual noise, the smoke
of ego turning over its engine blinds
us till we can no longer see past
our minor needs to the major constellations
of the ram, the hunter, the swan
that guide our finite gaze
through the infinite dark.
• senators with oil bribes easing their way
toward power act from greed, yes,
but petty hatreds flash swarming thick
as piranhas in their murky speeches, and around
their deals musty resentments circle
buzzing like fat horseflies.
• Though courtship turns frogs into princes
marriage turns them quietly back.
• If we love long, we stand like row
houses with no outer walls.
• On the north side of the heart, the snow
never melts.
~ From Available Light ~
• [...] Everyone you meet has just
your skin color and income level; the dys-
functional are removed immediately to storage.
~ From Mars and Her Children ~
• Eat, make fat against famine, grow round
while there's something rich to gnaw on,
urges the crone from her peasant wisdom.
She wants every woman her own pumpkin,
she wants me full as tonight's moon
when I long to wane. Why must I fight her,
who taught my mother's mother's mothers
to survive the death marches of winters past?
~ From Colors Passing Through Us ~
• I think the owl is calling me
over the black water to hide
in the pines and turn, turn
into something strange and dark
with wings and talons and words
of a more powerful language
than aunts and uncles know,
than aunts and uncles understand.
~ From The Crooked Inheritance ~
• The small birds leave cuneiform
messages on the snow: I have
been here, I am hungry, I
must eat. Where I dropped
seeds they scrape down
to pine needles and frozen sand.
• Marriage is one man and one woman
they say, one at a time, then another, another.
You see the buffed faces of old men shining
with money as they lead their young blonds
and toddlers, second or third families,
the shopworn wives donated to Goodwill.
It has always been so, they say,
one man and one woman in the Bible -
like Jacob with Leah and Rachel
and two bondmaidens dropping children,
his four women competing to swell
like a galaxy of moons.
• [...] Everyone over fifty was born
to a world where ideal housewives
scrubbed floors to a blinding gloss
in pearls and taffeta dresses on TV.
Women came with umbilical cords
leading to vacuum cleaners. You
plugged in a wife and she began
a wash cycle while her eyes spun.
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/593059.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.
131. The Hunger Moon, by Marge Piercy, is an extensive selected poems from her nine published volumes 1980-2010 plus new poems. When I began reading it was book 124! Ms Piercy is one of my essential contemporary poets (probably top five) because I can pick up almost any of her many books and hand it to someone in full confidence that they'll find something in it worth reading. [/Gillian Clarke, Grace Nichols, UA Fanthorpe, Marge Piercy, and Naomi Shihab Nye]. (5/5 genius at work) One complete poem and some extracts, but it's impossible to cover her full range here....
• My mother gives me her recipe, by Marge Piercy
Take some flour. Oh, I don't know,
like two-three cups, and you cut
in the butter. Now some women
they make it with shortening,
but I say butter, even though
that means you had to have fish, see?
You cut up some apples. Not those
stupid sweet ones. Apples for the cake,
they have to have some bite, you know?
A little sour in the sweet, like love.
You slice them into little moons.
No, no! Like half or crescent
moons. You aren't listening.
You mix sugar and cinnamon and cloves,
some women use allspice, till it's dark
and you stir in the apples. You coat
every little moon. Did I say you add
milk? Oh, just till it feels right.
Use your hands. Milk in the cake part!
Then you pat it into a pan, I like
round ones, but who cares?
I forgot to say you add baking powder.
Did I forget a little lemon on the apples?
Then you just bake it. Well, till it's done
of course. Did I remember you place
the apples in rows? You can make
a pattern, like a weave. It's pretty
that way. I like things pretty.
It's just a simple cake.
Any fool can make it
except your aunt. I
gave her the recipe
but she never
got it right.
~ From Stone, Paper, Knife ~
• Habit’s fine dust chokes us.
As in a city the streetlights
and neon signs prevent us from viewing
the stars, so the casual noise, the smoke
of ego turning over its engine blinds
us till we can no longer see past
our minor needs to the major constellations
of the ram, the hunter, the swan
that guide our finite gaze
through the infinite dark.
• senators with oil bribes easing their way
toward power act from greed, yes,
but petty hatreds flash swarming thick
as piranhas in their murky speeches, and around
their deals musty resentments circle
buzzing like fat horseflies.
• Though courtship turns frogs into princes
marriage turns them quietly back.
• If we love long, we stand like row
houses with no outer walls.
• On the north side of the heart, the snow
never melts.
~ From Available Light ~
• [...] Everyone you meet has just
your skin color and income level; the dys-
functional are removed immediately to storage.
~ From Mars and Her Children ~
• Eat, make fat against famine, grow round
while there's something rich to gnaw on,
urges the crone from her peasant wisdom.
She wants every woman her own pumpkin,
she wants me full as tonight's moon
when I long to wane. Why must I fight her,
who taught my mother's mother's mothers
to survive the death marches of winters past?
~ From Colors Passing Through Us ~
• I think the owl is calling me
over the black water to hide
in the pines and turn, turn
into something strange and dark
with wings and talons and words
of a more powerful language
than aunts and uncles know,
than aunts and uncles understand.
~ From The Crooked Inheritance ~
• The small birds leave cuneiform
messages on the snow: I have
been here, I am hungry, I
must eat. Where I dropped
seeds they scrape down
to pine needles and frozen sand.
• Marriage is one man and one woman
they say, one at a time, then another, another.
You see the buffed faces of old men shining
with money as they lead their young blonds
and toddlers, second or third families,
the shopworn wives donated to Goodwill.
It has always been so, they say,
one man and one woman in the Bible -
like Jacob with Leah and Rachel
and two bondmaidens dropping children,
his four women competing to swell
like a galaxy of moons.
• [...] Everyone over fifty was born
to a world where ideal housewives
scrubbed floors to a blinding gloss
in pearls and taffeta dresses on TV.
Women came with umbilical cords
leading to vacuum cleaners. You
plugged in a wife and she began
a wash cycle while her eyes spun.
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/593059.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.