A Work of Artifice- Marge Piercy

        After looking a little more into the background of Marge Piercy's life, this poem definitely made more sense. She was born in 1936 and her family went through the Great Depression. She had raised in a racially segregated neighborhood. Her Jewish grandmother took care of her, along with her mother who was imaginative and outspoken which was unusual for that time period. So she was raised among many stereotypes that were repressed and judged for their race, religion, gender, etc. She became active in civil rights, and then started writing poems about woman's rights.
         The bonsai tree in this poem represents women who are cut back and made to look pretty, instead of being able to reach a potentially huge level, even of eighty feet tall. She talks about how men have the mind set that women are lucky to have the protection that they provide, the tree having a pot to grow in, and it is expected to remain loyal to their "wifely duties", becoming domestic and weak as she puts it. The poem starts out to seemingly be just about the tree, but as it progresses she hints more and more that is about womens rights adding in words like "domestic and weak," "crippled brain," "hair in curlers," and "hands you love to touch," personifying the tree progressively more as a woman. I can definitely see how this poem would have become extremely popular at the time because women really didn't speak out, and if they did they were ignored and disrespected. Now that this isn't as much of an issue because we've come so far in increasing women's rights, this poem didn't really hit me that hard, but I still definitely liked the style and idea behind it!