"A Work of Artifice" Poetry Blog.

A Work of Artifice
The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers
the hands you
love to touch.
-Marge Piercy

     On the surface, this is a poem about those small, nicely pruned bonsai trees. The trees could grow to be very tall, but a gardener carefully spends his time to dwarf it and shape it into what he wants it to be. Looking deeper, this poem could be seen as a commentary on the treatment of asian women. These lines: "the bound feet, the crippled brain, the hair in curlers the hands you love to touch" definitely imply physical aspects of asian women. By binding their feet, crippling their brains, and making their hair pretty the men of their society dwarf and prune them like bonsai trees to make them the perfect little women that they desire.
     The style of this poem is simple with short sentences; it is not overly flowery. This style helps the meaning of the poem because it reinforces the themes of smallness and control.
     The antecedant scenario may have been Marge Piercy thinking of a comparison to the atrocious treatment of women in China and other asian countires. She might have been thinking about these women and decided she wanted to write a poem that brought attention to the issue in an interesting way.