Margaret Atwood
By: Kayla Cousley
Margaret Atwood Biography
• Margaret Atwood was born November 18, 1939 in Ottawa.
• She is a poet, a novelist, a literary critic, a feminist and an
activist.
• She has won the Booker Prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award and
has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award seven
times, winning it twice.
• Her collection of poems The Circle Game was published in 1964
and was the collection that won the Governor General’s Award.
• She never intended to be a poet but the ability was thrust upon
her.
Biography continued
• “The day I became a poet was a sunny day of no particular
ominousness. I was walking across the football field, not
because I was sports-minded or had plans to smoke a cigarette
behind the field house -- the only other reason for going there -but because this was my normal way home from school. I was
scuttling along in my usual furtive way, suspecting no ill, when
a large invisible thumb descended from the sky and pressed
down on the top of my head. A poem formed. It was quite a
gloomy poem: the poems of the young usually are. It was a gift,
this poem -- a gift from an anonymous donor, and, as such,
both exciting and sinister at the same time.”
-Margaret Atwood
Poetry
• Double Persephone (1961)
• The Circle Game (1964) – winner of the 1966 Governor
General’s award
• Expeditions (1965)
• Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein (1966)
• The Animals in That Country (1968)
• The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970)
• Procedures for Underground (1971)
• Are You Happy (1974)
• Selected Poems (1976)
• Two-Headed Poems (1978)
Poetry continued
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True Stories (1981)
Love songs of a Terminator (1983)
Interlunar (1984)
Morning in the Burned House (1996)
The Door (2007)
The Era
• Most of her most noteworthy poems (The Circle Game) were
published in the 1960’s.
• This is the era of the baby boomers and Elvis introducing rock
and roll.
• There are a lot of drugs and a lot of abstract meanings in the
world during this time.
• Her poems have deeper meanings that you have to dig deeper
in between the lines to find, therefore making them abstract.
• Also part of the era was the notion of loving nature and certain
poems by Margaret Atwood reflect that tree-hugger mentality.
Poetry Definition
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According to dictionary.com poetry is defined as:
The art or work of a poet.
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Poems regarded as forming a division of literature.
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The poetic works of a given author, group, nation, or kind.
A piece of literature written in meter; verse.
Prose that resembles a poem in some respect, as in form or
sound.
The essence or characteristic quality of a poem.
A quality that suggests poetry, as in grace, beauty, or
harmony: the poetry of the dancer's movements.
But what really defines poetry and how we see it?
Poetry Continued
• According to Mr. Murray poetry is language’s attempt to eat
itself.
• This definition has more truth to it for a number of reasons
• 1. in language rules work must be linear and poetry doesn’t
necessarily follow those rules
• 2. poetry expresses emotion whereas literature found in novels
tells a story. Does emotion in fact follow a linear chain?
• 3. literary devices are used to create an image and in poetry
you have to chisel away the words to find the true meaning and
image.
• Dr. Seuss is a perfect example of language trying to eat itself
because it makes no linear sense but yet we derive meaning
from it.
The Moment
• The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
The Moment Poetic Analysis
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This poem is from Morning in the Burned House published in 1996.
In this poem Margaret is describing someone finishing their life’s
journey and looking upon all that they have.
She switches into telling it from the perspective of the objects
themselves saying that we are not yours, you are simply borrowing us.
Everything you have experienced in life, all of it belongs to the object
itself and not the person who uses it.
It says that all you have experience wasn’t found by you, that it was
shown to you by the experiences that found you in your journey.
You never know how you get somewhere, you never “own” your
possessions, everything owns itself and the only thing you own is
yourself.
The Moment Literary Analysis
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Allegory is a device found in this poem. An allegory is a story that has
a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. The literal meaning of this
poem is that we borrow what we have. The poetic meaning is that
though we borrow we never really have, what we never really have we
have never really found.
Aphorism is used in this poem as well. It is a brief saying that has a
moral that gives perception to a saying. The line that embodies this is
“You own nothing.”
Characterization is effectively used. Characterization may reveal the
thoughts of a person and we see the thoughts of the person in this
poem in an effective phrase of “I own this”.