To Be Of Use

“For the young who want to” by Marge Piercy (1982)

This poem, written in 1980, appears in 1982’s Circles on the Water and deals with the varying responses people make to aspiring writers. As in “To Be of Use,” Piercy uses stanzas to organize her message, offering up descriptions of the insults people give to those who struggle with their craft, assuming its “a tedious / delusion, a hobby like knitting” (Lines 5-6).

Piercy’s speaker gives advice at the end of the poem to combat this just as the speaker in “To Be Of Use” offers ways to navigate working. “The real writer is one / who really writes” (Lines 31-32), the speaker says, noting that the process itself is “its own cure” (Line 35), much like “work that is real” (Line 26) satisfies the worker in “To Be of Use.”

“Pushing the Clock Hands Back” by Marge Piercy (2006)

Published in The Monthly Review, this poem, like “To Be of Use,” details those who watch others work, like “parlor generals” (Line 15). In this later poem, “[i]mportant bloated men squat on the facts / thinking they can hide them with their weight” (Lines 1-2). The speaker declares that they are “mad with power and drunk with riches, / building war machines” (Lines 10-11).