Not content to wait for happiness and prosperity in some other life, [Piercy] is driven to find a social and personal happiness on this earth, and the driving force behind her poetry is a stubborn utopian vision. At the same time she remains aware—almost too aware—of the obstacles, social and personal, confronting her. (p. 206)

Her first book, Breaking Camp (… 1968), presents a rather strange mixture of styles. "Last Scene in the First Act,"… a clever, ironic meditation on a pair of lovers, shows the slick poetic technique of the academic poets of the 1950's…. There is even a sonnet. But in spite of such superficial cleverness, a breathing person moves behind the poetry. We know her life, her concerns.

The first poem in the book, "Visiting a Dead Man on a Summer Day" … shows the poet in Graceland cemetery in Chicago where she has gone to visit...