To Be Of Use

“To Be of Use” by Marge Piercy is a lyric poem of four stanzas that was first published in a 1973 collection of the same title. This collection was Piercy’s fourth, published relatively early in her career. The poem also appeared in Piercy’s Circles on the Water, a collection of selected poems published in 1982, and Piercy mentions it as “one of [her] favorite poems” (See: Further Reading & Resources) in that volume’s Introduction. While Piercy is known for her political activism and feminism, this poem has been embraced both popularly and critically. It is often noted for its focus of the dignity of hard work and its theme of perseverance. It is indicative of Piercy’s focus on social concerns, particularly her support of labor equity.

In an appearance at the 2015 Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Piercy talked about the poem’s “strange afterlife” since its original publication in 1973, noting it is often read at memorials for “lawyers and activists” (See: Further Reading & Resources). The poem is widely taught and appears in several anthologies. Besides its subject matter, the poem is notable as a good example of Piercy’s non-rhyming imagistic style and colloquial diction.

Poet Biography

Marge Piercy was born on March 31, 1936, in Detroit, Michigan, to Robert Douglas Piercy, a machine repairman, and Bert Bedoyna Bunnin Piercy. The family also included a son from the mother’s first marriage. The working-class neighborhood Piercy grew up in was marked by labor and racial tension. Piercy’s mother was Jewish, and Piercy faced some bullying due to her ethnicity. Piercy was close to her maternal grandmother, who gave her the Hebrew name Marah (See: Further Reading & Resources). Family members on her maternal side faced persecution and death during the Holocaust, which affected Piercy and inspired the subject matter of much of her work.

Piercy contracted German measles and rheumatic fever in her childhood and turned to books for escape during her illness. A first-generation college student, Piercy attended the University of Michigan on scholarship and received her bachelor's degree in 1957. During that time, she won several awards for writing. This helped her gain a fellowship to Northwestern University, where she received her master's degree.

At Northwestern, she married Michael Schiff, a physicist of Jewish-French heritage, in 1958. Schiff and Piercy divorced in 1959. Piercy lived in Chicago, working a variety of jobs, trying unsuccessfully to publish a novel. In 1962, she met and married Robert Shapiro, a computer scientist. The two had an open marriage and had significant relationships with other partners.

From 1965 to 1968, Piercy concentrated on anti-war involvement, civil rights, and political activism. This would also spur subsequent fiction and poetry that would focus on the issues of labor and feminism. In 1968, Piercy’s first book of poetry, Breaking Camp, was published. Her second collection, Hard Loving, was published the next year. Her first novel, Going Down Fast, was also published in 1969.

In 1971, Piercy and Shapiro settled in Cape Cod. Piercy continued her prolific output, publishing five novels, including Small Changes (1973), and four collections of poetry, including To Be of Use (1976). That same year, she published a speculative science fiction novel called Woman on the Edge of Time, which deals with mental illness, feminism, and LGBTQIA+ concerns. Some have included the book as one of the first examples of cyberpunk. In 1978, she won an award from the National Endowment of the Arts.

While Piercy enjoyed gardening and the friends she made in their new home on the Cape, differences with Shapiro led to a divorce in 1980. That same year, Piercy released what is considered a feminist poetry classic, The Moon Is Always Female. Two years later, Piercy married writer Ira Wood. The two have collaborated on works of fiction and one drama.

In the same year as her third marriage, Piercy released her selected poems, Circles On the Water. In the 1980s she also published the collections Stone, Paper, Knife (1983), My Mother’s Body (1985), Available Light (1988), a book of personal essays called Parti-Colored Blocks for a Quilt (1982), and several novels.

In 1991, He, She And It (1991), a science fiction novel reworking the tale of Golem, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. The 1990s also brought four more novels and four poetry collections, including Mars and Her Children (1992), What are Big Girls Made Of (1997), Early Grrrl (1999), and The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems with a Jewish Theme (1993). In 1996, Piercy and Wood co-founded Leapfrog Press, a small independent press, which they ran until they sold it in 2008.

Due to illness, her production in the 2000s was slower but still included two novels, three works of nonfiction, an audiobook of poetry, and six collections of poetry, including Colors Passing Through Us (2003), The Crooked Inheritance (2006), The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems 1980-2010 (2012), Made in Detroit (2017), and On the Way Out, Turn Out the Light (2020). As she has throughout her career, Piercy continues to teach classes at various universities, run workshops, and judge poetry prizes. She remains a fierce advocate of feminism, labor equality, and the Jewish renewal movement. She continues to live and work on Cape Cod with Wood.

Poem Text

Piercy, Marge. “To Be of Use.” 1973. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

In this lyric poem, Piercy’s speaker details the kind of people they most admire: those who don’t shirk from hard work. These people are comparable to strong swimmers who don’t hesitate to go in the water, much like seals. They are also similar to large pack animals like oxen, who move their cargo through rough terrain, even when the way makes them “strain” (Line 10). They continue to do this task to succeed, even if it takes a long time. The hard-working are also compared to those who labor in “fields to harvest” (Line 13).

The speaker appreciates those who work together to achieve a task more than those who might order the task be done or leave the task mid-way through. The speaker then clarifies that if work is done poorly, it makes a greater mess. However, successful work “has a shape that satisfies” (Line 21). This shape is compared to Greek urns and Native American “vases” (Line 23), both of which were used to carry items. This sense of carrying is correlated to the duties that a person takes on to feel useful.