In a Dark Time … The Eye Begins to See

Margaret Atwood’s Selected Poems 1965-1975 begins with a section entitled “from The Circle Game.” Not surprisingly, the dominant symbol in this section is the “circle,” a complex symbol that seems to have at least two distinct meanings for her. First, as used in the title poem, it seems to represent community, a group of children [...]

The second section in Margaret Atwood’s Selected Poems 1965-1975 entitled “from The Animals in That Country” focuses more on her Canadian background than the first section. One theme is that of Canada as wilderness. The title poem begins with the stanza “In that country the animals/ have the faces of people” and ends with “In [...]

The section of poems entitled “The Journals of Susanna Moodie” would by themselves justify the purchase of Selected Poems 1965-1975. It is based on the life of a famous, to Canadians at least, Canadian pioneer woman() who wrote poetry among other works. Perhaps that is why the poems in this section remind me so much of [...]

The title for this section, which comes from the poem “Procedures for Underground,” suggests that you can learn “wisdom and great power” from the “underground” but that “for this gift, as for all gifts you must suffer” for you will always hear the dead whispering to you. And certainly many, though not all, of the [...]