Writers who serve two muses—the muse of poetry and the muse of prose—often find that their passionate and intense lyrical outbursts find their way into poems, while their longer speculations on society and the way people interact with each other psychologically and politically, grow into novels. This is the case with Marge Piercy, an immensely gifted poet and novelist whose range and versatility have made it hard for her talents to be adequately appreciated critically. (pp. 12, 14)

Though her novel, "Small Changes," was rather too polemical for my taste, there is no denying that each of her novels has been breathtakingly ambitious and clearly the work of a major talent. I have followed her poems closely … and this new book, "Living in the Open," is undoubtedly the best. The style is the same style Piercy had grown into by her first book: powerfully rhythmic free verse which...