On The Way Out,
Turn Off The Light
ABOUT ON THE WAY OUT, TURN OFF THE LIGHT
A bountiful group of poems–direct, honest, and revelatory–that reflect on language, nature, old age, young love, Judaism, and our current politics, from one of our most read and admired poets
“Words are my business,” Marge Piercy begins her twentieth collection of poetry, a glance back at a lifetime of learning, loving, grieving, and fighting for the disenfranchised, and a look forward at what the future holds for herself, her family and friends, and her embattled country. In the opening section, Piercy tells of her childhood in Detroit, with its vacant lots and scrappy children, the bike that gave her wings, her ambition at fourteen to “gobble” down all knowledge, a too early marriage (“I put on my first marriage / like a girdle my skinny body / didn’t need”). We then leap into the present, her “twilight zone,” where she is “learning to be quiet,” learning to give praise despite it all. There are funny poems about medicine ads with their dire warnings, and some possible plusses about being dead: “I’ll never do another load of laundry . . .” There is “comfort in old bodies / coming together,” in a partner’s warmth – “You’re always warm: warm hands / smooth back sleek as a Burmese cat./ Sunny weather outside and in.”
Piercy has long been known for her political poems, and here we have her thoughts on illegal immigrants, dying languages, fraught landscapes, abortion, President-speak. She examines her nonbeliever’s need for religious holidays and spiritual depth, and the natural world is appreciated throughout. On the Way Out, Turn Off the Light is yet more proof of Piercy’s love and mastery of language–it is moving, stimulating, funny, and full of the stuff of life.
Hardcover | $28.00
Published by Knopf
Sep 29, 2020 | 208 Pages | 5-3/8 x 8-1/4 | ISBN 9780593317938
From Publishers Weekly:
The multifaceted 20th collection from Piercy (Made in Detroit) touches on her identities as activist, teacher, cat lover, novelist, and poet. Among other topics, the poet confronts past pain, including failed marriages, recalling matter-of-factly, “earlier husbands were mixed bags;/ domesticity had its knives, needles,/ and pillows.” She shifts from these past relationships to the sensual “heat-seeking missile” of her current lover: “Yes, we make love in bed and on/ the couch, but we also make love... / out of ink and kitty litter, out of hours/ and days given to each other not/ because we must but from desire.” This tone contrasts starkly with her withering critique of current American politics: “We saw the cliff ahead/ We were warned/ We took everyone over.” Yet even in this fraught political climate, Piercy celebrates the beauty of the world through the joy of her furry companions, the bounty of her garden grown from seeds that “arrive in the mail, packets of hope.” Piercy’s collection is full of life, companionship, and the importance of advocating for others. (Sept.)
From The Boston Globe:
Marge Piercy’s 20th collection of poetry, On the Way Out, Turn Off the Light contains her singular mix of political and personal. She addresses our fraught moment in “dirge for my country” with wry nods to the possible apocalypse we’re moving toward. She references immigrants and abortion, our warming earth, our extinction—both indisdiual and species-wide. Some poems feel list-like, items and acts that accumulate to make a moment, a series of thoughts, the span of a life, the way a mind moves in time: “Much too early marriage/ French lessons/ Chicago one summer/ The various flavors of argument.” Aging and its indignities get hers gets her sensitive, sometimes funny, attention, and Piercy, who lives on Cape Cod, is espcially deft when noticing the moments she came into herself: “in the vacant lot overgrown with/ ragweed and bright blue chicory…something unbuilt/ untamed rooted in me and grew.” There’s a strength in her self-definition: “my radical loudmouth/ sexually busy Jewish self.” And a sense, in her aging, of turning toward the openness and opportunity of silence, of finding the “minor pleasures”… that come to us when “we spread silence around us…and allow ourselves to subside into stillness and wait.”
And, on the Audiobook version, From AudioFile Magazine:
Those who claim modern poetry is inaccessible are not reading—or listening to—Marge Piercy. Her poetry is not shallow, but it is clear and, at least on one level, easy to follow. Her readings, likewise, are strong and inviting. Piercy's diction is not always perfect, but, like the poetry, it is always authentically hers, and the slight flaws never get in the way of understanding. Her varied themes include politics (emphatically leftist), gender roles, Jewishness, womanhood, age, and mortality, all of which she approaches with a matter-of-factness that is one of the gifts of long and considered experience. Piercy shares her life with admirable honesty.