BREAKING CAMP

by Marge Piercy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 2, 1967

Although Marge Piercy writes on such subjects as love, marriage, family and domestic life, her poetry is anything but conventionally feminine. No sentimentality, no self pity or self-consciousness, no rebellion nor wonder at her special role, no gentle sensitivity... None of the usual strengths and weaknesses mark her tough adult awareness of existence, the hard brilliance of a world in which beauty and ugliness, love and pain, always co-existing but opposed through specific, flashing, interwoven images, create a tense sense of immediately felt life. Her vocabulary and imagery are striking; she is one of the few poets who can use one-syllable or even four-letter words without ostentation, since the energy and clarity of her intentions fuses them quite naturally into her poetic language. She is highly quotable, but ought not be quoted piece-meal, since her poems are all wholes, in which incisive phrases modify or reflect each other. It is angry, alive, loving, real poetry; not ""feminine,"" put powerfully female: Breaking Camp, indeed, to leave old concepts and establish a new territory between men and women.

Pub Date: Feb. 2, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Wesleyan Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1967

Categories: NONFICTION