Mars and Her Children

March 30, 1992
Piercy's ( Available Light ) is a poetry of the senses, and often that means sensual overload for readers, who may feel after reading a few of these poems that they have eaten too many rich desserts. A poem entitled ``When too much is barely enough'' is exemplary of Piercy's style: ``The scent of butter and cream honeysuckle / is ladled like sambuca straight into my brain . . . .'' The poem is about nothing more than a beautiful day, yet Piercy's overzealous metaphor-making gives it a queasy, psychedelic tinge. To be fair, other poems are more imagistically restrained in this uneven collection. In ``The pain came back like something sharp in my eye'' the speaker recounts the neurotic incidents of an old lover who has killed himself. The poet proclaims, ``You feared love with an energy better spent / fearing death, to whom you gave yourself wholly / at last, supine to that sour kiss.'' Offering oneself up to life's (particularly love's) sensual pleasures is what we must do for our bodies while we're still alive, the poet says, because one day we will succumb to diseases like cancer and AIDS, and at least we will have ``sucked the last morsel of pleasure onto our tongue /since we're charged anyhow for living.''

March 15, 1992
An exceptional new collection of poems by a prolific and ambidextrous author, who writes popular novels such as "He, She, It" as well as first-rate poetry. Here Piercy opens on a cautionary note with "The ark of consequence," which states, in effect: what goes around, comes around. It also establishes the rainbow, that "boomerang of liquid/light," as the collection's underlying structure. Each section title is a color, and the poems follow a loose diurnal and seasonal cycle. Piercy expresses a spectrum of moods as she writes about her fear of blindness, our treatment of animals, childhood memories, and the furtiveness of nighttime rain. In her last book of poetry, "Available Light", Piercy struggled with mixed emotions about aging; here she articulates a steady affection for life. Her metaphors are supple and unforeseen, her humor wicked and keen. As the collection spins on its axis of preoccupations and celebrations, Piercy lingers on the question of holiness, the union of body and soul, and the precariousness of life. Mindful, varied, and rewarding poems sure to challenge and please readers new to Piercy as well as dedicated fans. ((Reviewed Mar. 15, 1992))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1992, American Library Association.)