In What Are Big Girls Made Of?, Marge Piercy uses poetry as an instrument for voicing her political views and as expositions of human experiences that she has witnessed. Though she also explores subject matter in her other poems dealing with an appreciation of nature, her Jewish background, and daily pressures that most people must face, it is the issues concerning women specifically which thematically dominate this volume of poetry and many of her other written works. Each poem uses literary techniques fittingly to convey its mood and meaning with an abundant use of similes, metaphors, and alliteration, and including a wealth of imagery for an enlightening experience and a lack of it for a more sobering one.

In the first poem "On guard," the speaker in Piercy's poem confesses her need for her lover to protect her and watch over her in sickness and in health until death when they part. This poem is particularly evident in its effective use of language which include similes, metaphors, alliteration, assonance, and repetition. In the first stanza, the speaker says that she craves physical intimacy with her love where they can "curl around each other like two socks matched and balled in a drawer" and she can feel safe with her "bodyguard." Then she metaphorically compares their two bodies sensually to "two S's snaked curve to curve" as she feels the warmth of his body wrapped around hers. The speaker continues with the idea of equating lover as protector and nurturer in the third stanza where she personifies the illness that she wants him to tuck in and expresses her hope that whenever she is sick, he will nurse her back to health "with tea and chicken/ soup whose steam sweetens the house." In the next stanza, Piercy uses personification again in addition to alliteration and assonance. "As the knives wink in the thin light/ and the whips crack out from shelter," her lover will safeguard her from harm. These repetition of sounds and of phrases in the poem, such as "I want you," serves to intensify the emotion and her desire for him to play the role of protector. In the second half of the poem, she repeats the phrase "guard my body" twice and then says that they should "guard each other," further developing a sense of passion that accompanies the sexual references made in fifth, sixth, and seventh stanzas of him "warm[ing] me from the inside out," their "shining bones, and "wake[ing] to the morning fresh/ and wet." To convey another meaning of the poem, Piercy also uses shifts in language that reveal the speaker's mindset. In the first four stanzas, when she says that "I want you," she could be in control in that her desires are the focus but at the same time, she wants her strong lover to protect her which would put her into a secondary status. The feminist she is, Piercy may then have intentionally changed to imperative language in fifth to seventh stanzas to put the woman back in control. Then in the last stanza, the speaker compromises her need for nurturing and her own strength by asking to "let us guard each other until death" and to be "each other's rose red warrior."

In "Salt in the afternoon," Piercy goes from a more subtle sensuality in the previous poem to glaring sex and sexuality as she likens an erotic love-making experience to the beauty of the beach. Though never actually stating that she and her lover are having sex, the speaker in the poem implies that they are swimming in a sea of seduction, swept up in the "surf of desire sliding in on the warm beach." The description of the "pumping back" of the "gorgeous predator" has obvious sexual connotations as they work up to a climax when the shell will finally open. Metaphorically as "two great deep currents colliding into white water," the lovers are "opaline and pearled with light sweat" which usually comes from that kind of vigorous physical activity. Finally, they reach their peak of pleasure when "the clam shell opens/ the oyster is eaten/ [and] the squid shoots its white ink," the last phrase undoubtedly referring to ejaculation. Altogether, the erotic imagery and language show that the lovers have been whisked away by the romantic representation of the passionate ocean.

Moving from these general themes of love and sex, Piercy confronts and focuses on more serious issues in "A day in the life" based on the specific experiences of a woman working at an abortion clinic. In the poem, the poet commends her for withstanding the protests and threats of attack from anti-abortion activists and for continuing to work for what she perceives is the greater good. The poem traces the routine of this woman who is constantly in danger of the people who object to her part in pregnancy termination. First she awakens to a "male voice promising she will burn in hell," discovers the corpse of a cat nailed to her porch, and then must retrieve her car hidden in a neighbor's garage and take a roundabout way to work as precautionary measures. Upon arriving at the clinic, the woman then has to face the hostile protesters who consistently harass her, and "bump and jostle her." At this point, the reader has most likely realized how strong she must be and all the energy it must take for her just to make it through the day when she reaches the inside of the office and she simply sighs.

The poet then makes appeals to pathos, calling upon the reader to empathize even in the littlest bit with those who go through abortions. After the speaker lists some common case scenarios in which abortion may seem the only option, from health reasons to sexual abuse to rape, the reader may find it hard to not feel some kind of sympathy for those women who were put into these desperate and helpless circumstances. Just as the three men in front of the clinic had tried to appeal to the woman's emotions by shoving photos of six-month fetuses in her face, Piercy juxtaposes in the eleventh stanza "I'm going to cut your throat, you murderer" with "Have a nice day" to convey the two opposite extremes and hint at the roller coaster of emotions that everyone involved in abortions must be put through. Also, after describing her different duties at the clinic where she "checks them in, takes medical histories, holds hands, dries tears, hears secrets and lies and horrors, soothes, [and] continues," the reader has seen how devoted she must be to the cause and then probably pities her when all the support that she has given to others rewards her with a boyfriend who has grown tired of consoling her all the time.

Though "A day in the life" lacks the rich imagery and figurative language of "On guard" and "Salt in the afternoon," the poem's no-nonsense approach and straightforward language is much more appropriate and effective in conveying the seriousness of such matters and the dejection of the woman. Every detail in the poem reinforces the idea that the woman in it must be extraordinarily courageous to risk her life every day to help other women get their lives in order. However, there is one particular example of simile, a technique which she uses frequently throughout the book, that strikes at the heart of the woman's daily struggle to do what she believes is right. The comparison of the day falling on her like a "truckload of wet cement" shows that she has the strength of character and will power to carry the weight of such a controversial job. Therefore, the speaker in the poem wants to commend the woman for her bravery, made evident in her comment that "this is what I know of virtue/ this is what I know/ of goodness in our time."

In the last included poem, Piercy broadens her theme by addressing a subject that deals with a whole half of society. In the poem that bears the same name as this book, Piercy criticizes women for the materialistic and vain goals that they strive to achieve for social accessibility, and she condemns the society which places such weight on how much a woman has conformed to a standard of beauty portrayed in the media. She introduces this concept by ironically stating that "a woman is not made of flesh/ of bone and sinew/ belly and breasts, elbows and liver and toe." Instead, "she is manufactured like a sports sedan" and is forced to fit into a certain mold. If she doesn't, then she must be "retooled, refitted and redesigned ever decade" to follow whatever the latest fads and trends are. The simile serves to intensify the idea that women have sacrificed their uniqueness and in essence their identities and have thus been likened to a product that can be mass produced and adjusted for any purpose in mind.

Then in the second stanza, Piercy shifts from a generality to the specific example of a woman named Cecile who has gained a reputation as a temptress in college. Described as the personification of "seduction itself" in school, with "hips and ass promising" and "her mouth pursed in the dark red lipstick of desire," Cecile has since lost that status because she has failed to keep up with the times. "Still wearing skirts/ tight to the knees" when she visited in 1968, she is looked down upon now simply because she is not wearing the mini skirt and the "lipstick pale as apricot milk" that is in style at the moment. The speaker reiterates this point through repetition in explaining that Cecile is "out of fashion, out of game/ disqualified, disdained, dis- / membered from the club of desire." No man wants her anymore just because she does not happen to dress according to the crowd.

The poet continues to satirize the notion of uniformity as the speaker reflects on the history of woman's painful pursuit of beauty. In the days of old, for example, woman had to squeeze themselves into corsets to achieve the perfect waistline and into tiny shoes for the appearance of petite, graceful feet. Donning hair heavily "ornamented with ribbons, vases, grottoes, mountains, frigates in full sails, balloons, [and] baboons," and exposing breasts that are "stuffed up and out/ offered like apples in a bowl," these 18th century women seem to be nothing more than dolls and sex objects. Piercy's inclusion of such improbable and ridiculous items to have in the women's hair offers the sarcastic, biting tone that is best conveyed by her characterization of the women "forced into shape/ rigid exoskeleton torturing flesh" as women "made of pain."

The speaker then continues with her cynical comments about the apparent stagnation with women's liberation from these unrealistic ambitions of fitting the image of the ideal woman. "How superior we [as modern women] are now," the speaker reflects ironically. She notes that the modern woman, whose thinness is compared dramatically to a blade of scissors in a simile, suffers now from exercising each day rigorously and from starving herself in the name of beauty. Women have become so obsessive about their looks that they are risking their health for this purpose, and they have indulged themselves so much on that fantasy of having a "body of rosy glass that never wrinkles, never grows, never fades" that they become engaged in an asceticism that leaves each of them "hungry, always hungry." The speaker points out that even now the women are "made of pain."

With all this fuss that women go through to look good, the speaker wonders in the sixth and seventh stanza why cats and dogs can get along fine without giving in to the societal pressures and humans cannot. In the animals' case, they never care about the "furry flesh," "hoop skirts or push up bras/ rib removal or liposuction." They "fall in love as often as we do, as passionately" regardless of any superficial characteristics. It is for us that "poodles are clipped to topiary hedges" and it us that surrenders too easily to the cause of aesthetics. The speaker then begins to ponder what it would be like "if only we could like each other raw" for the quirks and imperfections that distinguish us from other and define who we are. Instead, we follow for the sake of fashion and we pay attention to what's hot and what's not just because we understand the nature of others and ourselves to judge on the basis of looks. The speaker then seems exasperated by this that she finally ends with a question and with the reader questioning just when women "will…not be compelled to view their bodies as science projects/ gardens to be weeded/ dogs to be trained." She wonders whether there will ever be a time when a woman will learn to accept what she looks like as a part of who she is and a time when she will "cease to be made of pain."

Altogether, these four poems from Marge Piercy's collection called What Are Big Girls Made Of? highlight the experience of being a woman. Though critical of some and praising of others, her poetry is on the whole the mark of a woman who has a lot to say and is able to say it with a refined eloquence. Her poems are littered with different types of descriptive and figurative language that elucidate and strengthen the expression of her feelings allowing the reader to more readily relate to those experiences. Whether she writes of rapturous moments of pleasure or a daily routine fraught with danger, Piercy articulates these true-to-life moments with both embellished beauty and simplicity.