A Work of Artifice - (Annotation)

We discussed Marge Piercy's poem, A Work of Artifice in class briefly. This poem had powerful symbolism to me. It is a poem about the oppression of women in society. It compares a woman to a bonsai tree in an attractive pot. Piercy is stating that the Bonsai is a tree that has the potential to grow 80ft tall on the side of a mountain, but due to the careful pruning of the gardener, it only stretches to be 9in high. She is comparing the possibility of the natural identity of a woman with the reality of the artificial and constricted identity that culture places on her. They keep her confined in an "attractive pot" of beautiful dresses and curled hair.

This poem made me realize how difficult poetry can be to write. It wasn't until we started discussing the nature of the poem in class that I realized that such detail went into writing it. Not only does the poem convey powerful imagery of women and bonsai trees, but even the precise layout of the poem was intentional. Like the carefully pruned bonsai the poem has also been pruned. All the sentences are kept very short. That is all but one. All the sentences are short except for the sentence, "could have grown eighty feet tall". The poem not only displays a  powerful piece of imagery and art through each word written, but it also portrays powerful imagery in the placement of those words. I truly have an appreciation for this poem.

The poem goes on to talk about how if the tree was eighty feet tall it may be destroyed by lightening. I believe this line refers to a natural way of coming to an end which is preferred, rather than an artificial controlled environment. The use of the word gardener is very interesting to the poem since it is not an evil word, although we may interrupt that pruning and controlling the bonsai is cruel. Gardeners are people we consider to bring the best out of a landscape and out of a plant, but this gardener is doing the opposite. It didn't become clear until I choose to look up the word artifice.

I looked it up as it is not a common place word in my personal vocabulary. It turns out that it is defined by Miriam-Webster.com as a "clever or artful skill". It is also mentioned as a "false insincere behavior" in the social concept of the word.  It is used to trick or deceive others. Another dictionary called it outright fakery. This one word brought everything else into perspective. The gardener isn't a gardener at all, although that is how our culture may perceive him. He is insincere in his care for the plant. He is pruning the bonsai all the while crooning over it. He is declaring how lucky the little tree is to even have a pot while at the same time he calls her weak. This is out "outright fakery". He tries to deceive the plant to believe she is something she is not. This type of oppression is not always as blatant like the bound feet of another culture may seem to us. Piercy is saying that it is the subtle deception of curlers in a woman's hair. The perceived cultural norm or confinement of how a woman is to look, act, or behave. It is manipulative. The gardener croons, pretending to be caring for the tree. But the manipulation is that he is stunting her growth under what the text in my literature book calls the guise of kindness or concern. An artifice is considered an artful ruse. In doing this the culture sees the bonsai as beautiful, but that beauty is artificial. Truly the bonsai could have been something quite grand if left to grow in the natural world.

"artifice." Miriam-Webster.com. 2012. http://miriam-webster.com/ (1 February 2012).