You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

thewhimsicalowl's profile picture

thewhimsicalowl 's review for:

Selected Poems II: 1976 - 1986 by Margaret Atwood
5.0

"Living backwards means only / I must suffer everything twice. / Those picnics were already loss: / with the dragonflies and the clear streams halfway. / ...You did not consider me a soul / but a landscape, not even one / I recognize as mine, but foreign / and rich in curios..." (98).

Simply brilliant. Also, there are some fun tidbits of Canadian history, like how you could marry a hangman in 18th century Quebec in order to escape execution. She even makes a series of poems about snakes interesting, which is quite an accomplishment. (It's literally a noodle of an animal.) In "Aging Female Poet Sits on the Balcony," when Atwood writes, "Ah men, / why do you want / all this attention? / ...What do you have to offer me / I can't find otherwise / except humiliation?" I laughed out loud and my 5 star ranking was cemented.