Poet and novelist gives lively reading at Hillel

Poet and novelist Marge Piercy read works about homelessness, answering machines, women in Jewish history and mother-daughter relationships at the Hillel Auditorium Thursday night. Several of the approximately 50 people at the reading said the poem "Right to Life" was the most memorable of the poems Piercy read. She explained that its title is "a phrase that I'm taking back from those whom I think abuse the phrase." "This is my body; if I give it to you I want it back," she read. "My life is a non-negotiable demand." Some of the other poems Piercy read included "Return to the Cemetery in the Old Prague Ghetto," which she wrote after visiting Prague for the second time, and "I have always Been Poor at Flirting," in which she writes, "Yet when I flirt I feel like an elephant in a pink tutu balancing a beach ball." In "Woman in the Bushes," Piercy writes about a homeless woman, a topic she said seemed particularly relevant after walking around Philadelphia. Sharon Stiefel, assistant director of Hillel, described Piercy as "a poet and a writer who has really integrated a positive Jewish identity into her work ? also her identity as a feminist and an activist." College freshman Stefanie Cohen said that she had expected the reading to be specifically related to women's issues. "I had read some of her stuff before," she said. "I was surprised that it was really diverse, but I was completely drawn in nonetheless." "I thought she was wonderful," said Social Work graduate student Ruth Zakarin, chairperson of the Jewish Feminist Collaborative. "A couple of her poems really hit home. I think she is really eloquent on a number of issues that are important to me." The Jewish Feminist Collaborative, Connaissance, the English Department, the Women's Center and the Women's Studies Program sponsored the event.