In “The Secretary Chant” by Marge Piercy, the speaker reveals how her profession has changed the way she views herself through the use of metaphor and monotonous tone, to demonstrate that the speaker is capable of much more than mindless secretary work, which has robbed her of her identity.
The poem begins with the speaker comparing her body parts to various office supplies through metaphor. “My hips are a desk,” she writes, “Rubber bands form my hair.” Her hips are not like a desk, her hair does not look like rubber bands, she literally is them. Her body no longer belongs to her, it belongs to her job. She has no identity beyond secretary work, as she has transitioned form a woman into a working machine. Near the end of the poem, the speaker