Anne+Scotti

Margaret Atwood If Glenn Close and Cher had a baby it would be Margaret Atwood.
 * **Postcard**

I’m thinking about you. What else can I say? The palm trees on the reverse are a delusion. so is the pink sand. What we have are the usual fractured coke bottles and the smell of backed-up drains, too sweet, like a mango on the verge of rot, which we have also. The air clear sweat, mosquitoes & their tracks; birds, blue & elusive.

Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one day after the other rolling on; I move up, it’s called awake, then down into the uneasy nights but never forward. The roosters crow for hours before dawn, and a prodded child howls & howls on the pocked road to school. In the hold with the baggage there are two prisoners, their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates of queasy chicks. Each spring there’s a race of cripples, from the store to the church. This is the sort of junk I carry with me; and a clipping about democracy form the local paper.

Outside the window they’re building the damn hotel, nail by nail, someone’s crumbling dream. A universe that includes you can’t be all bad, but does it? At this distance you’re a mirage, a glossy image fixed in the posture of the last time I saw you. Turn you over, there’s the place for the address. Wish you were here. Love comes in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on & on, a hollow cave in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear. ................................................................................. || **Poem Analysis**

Between unsett‍lingly harmonious imagery ‍ and extended metaphor, Atwood uncovers the brutal and “elusive” reality of love. Love seems a picture-perfect “pink sand” beach with palm trees, but in reality is a “crumbling dream.”

The visceral appeal of the imagery in “Postcard” reflects the ideal of love. Unsettlingly describing the environment as unappealing, with “the smell of backed-up drains” and humid, sweaty air, each detail combines to create a harmonious, yet disagreeable, image. Though the true experience is unpleasant, this contradicting harmony draws the reader in, as does the ideal of love. Compared to the simultaneously beautiful and dangerous ocean, love is described as a never-ending “sickness,” violently “filling & pounding” the head of the lover. At first, love appears picturesque, but “in waves” it viciously causes pain. Foreshadowing the product of such a violent passion, “two prisoners” and “a race of cripples” echo love’s torture, begging the question: is the writer of this postcard another of these helpless beings?

Throughout the poem, Atwood compares the postcard’s receiver to the “glossy image” “on the reverse.” Explaining that this image is “a delusion,” the smell of rot, “fractured coke bottles,” and mosquitoes are the reality. This photo of the “pink sand” is a false representation and, by Atwood’s comparison, so is the receiver. Seemingly flawless, he may be yet another “delusion.” Atwood questions whether he is actually a part of her universe, whether he is “mirage” or reality, but she cannot decide, and her sickness “goes on & on.”

Bookending “Postcards,” Atwood uses common phrases to reflect the emptiness of both her note and love. Hollow statements of “I’m thinking about you” and “Wish you were here” reverberate the void left by a beautiful, hurtful, “elusive” love. ........................................................................................................................................................... ||
 * **A Meal**

We sit at a clean table eating thoughts from clean plates

and see, there is my heart germfree, and transparent as glass

and there is my brain, pure as cold water in the china bowl of my skull

and you are talking with words that fall spare on the ear like the metallic clink of knife and fork.

Safety by all means; so we eat and drink remotely, so we pick the abstract bone

but something is hiding somewhere in the scrubbed bare cupboard of my body flattening itself against a shelf and feeding on other people’s leavings

a furtive insect, sly and primitive the necessary cockroach in the flesh that nests in dust.

It will sidle out when the lights have all gone off in this bright room

(and you can’t crush it in the dark then my friend or search it out with your mind’s hands that smell of insecticide and careful soap)

In spite of our famines it keeps itself alive


 * how it gorges on a few

unintentional spilled crumbs of love || **Poem Analysis **

Through emphasis on cleanliness and perfection and insect metaphor, Atwood reveals that in spite of the loss of love in marriage, it maintains itself by feeding on the accidental “spilled crumbs of love.” Reflecting on her own failing marriage, Atwood’s depiction of “unintentional” love is honest and pure.

By appearance, the relationship outlined in “A Meal” seems flawless. The “clean plates” reside on a “clean table,” and all is safe and pure; but this exterior cleanliness reflects a marriage void of affection. Love is not clean or perfect; it is a delicious, messy, filling feast. Not taking part in that meal, Atwood’s heart is “germfree,” and her body is “scrubbed bare” of love for her husband. Thus, the “furtive insect” living inside Atwood must feed on “other people’s leavings” of fondness to sustain itself.

Symbolizing Atwood’s soul, the “necessary cockroach” hides deep within to protect itself. This part of her nourishes itself on love. “In spite of [their] famine” and her husband’s “hands that smell of insecticide,” the “furtive insect” survives. The few “crumbs of love” are a product of accidental, but instinctual, kindnesses, signifying that even when love fails a relationship can rely on simple acts in order to continue. ||
 * ** Siren Song **

This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible:

the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows because anyone who has heard it is dead, and the others can't remember.

Shall I tell you the secret and if I do, will you get me out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here squatting on this island looking picturesque and mythical

with these two faethery maniacs, I don't enjoy singing this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you, to you, only to you. Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me! Only you, only you can, you are unique

at last. Alas it is a boring song but it works every time. || ** Poem Analysis **

Between “picturesque” diction and shifting tone, Atwood sings the “Siren Song” that “works every time.” The poem is an allusion to the sirens of Greek mythology, temptresses who lure sailors with music only to crash and kill them on a rocky beach. No one has ever survived that song, and Atwood’s interpretation divulges the reason.

Nobody knows the siren song because “anyone who has heard it is dead,” and its power is evident in the visual imagery Atwood’s words weave. Convincing the sailor that she does not “enjoy it here,” the siren describes her powerful standing as merely “squatting” on an island with “these two faethery maniacs.” Her discomfort cleverly convinces men “to leap overboard” to her aid “even though they see the beached skulls” of previous victims. The two images, one of powerful sailors and the other of helpless victims, show the power of the siren in convincing the men to put blinders on themselves and walk the gangplank unprovoked.

While maintaining a facetiously dark mood, the tone shifts from mindless depression to subtle temptation to stark revelation. Flipping the dog on its head, Atwood begins by cleverly characterizing the siren as helpless prey instead of the sailor. She complains that she doesn’t “enjoy it here” singing with the other sirens and “squatting on this island,” transforming herself into a damsel in distress. After hooking the sailor, she begins to reel him in with humorous deception and with the secret of the “irresistible” song that is merely “a cry for help.” The sailor listens to what he wants to hear and not the truth, believing that only he is “unique” and able to help the siren even though she has warned him that the song is “fatal.” Finally, the siren concisely reveals the sailor’s crash stating that “it is a boring song but it works every time.”

Atwood reveals that the “Siren Song” works every time because humans are gullible and have an innate need to listen only to flattery. It is truly “the song everyone would like to learn” because if anyone did, he or she could control the world. ||
 * **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 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//. || **‍Poem Analysis ‍**

Through personification and dialogue, Atwood reveals humanity’s insignificance and inability to “//own//” the world. Reflecting on the “long voyage” of life, “The Moment” outlines the epiphany of ownership, but reveals that although it can be thought, no human may truly own any part of the powerfully beautiful world.

When “at last” someone declares “//I own this//,” the world recoils and disowns him or her. Trees “unloose their soft arms” from embrace, “the birds take back their language,” and the beauty of the natural world evades humanity. Personifying the majestically great Mother Nature, Atwood gives her the sovereignty she deservingly possesses. When nature disproves the statement of ownership, “the air moves back from you like a wave” leaving you breathless. Using simile to compare effervescent air to forceful ocean waves demonstrates the power of nature, and its ability to both be free and proclaim that fact.

Contrasting the human’s declaration with nature’s wind-carried whisper, Atwood shows that there is no need for nature to yell; it is already supreme. This “//visitor//” owns nothing; nature “//never belonged//” to him or her and he or she “//never found//” it. In fact, “//It was always the other way around//.” Humans are a part of this earth just like every other living creature and are equals, insignificant in the entire scheme. And although we possess language, we do not possess sovereignty over any other creature. We owe life to Mother Nature, and thus she owns us. Once that sacred bond breaks from avaricious demands, nature disowns the vow-breaker and the world’s natural beauty evades humanity. ||
 * **You Begin**

You begin this way: this is your hand, this is your eye, that is a fish, blue and flat on the paper, almost the shape of an eye. This is your mouth, this is an O or a moon, whichever you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window is the rain, green because it is summer, and beyond that the trees and then the world which is round and has only the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller and more difficult to learn than I have said. You are right to smudge it that way with the red and then the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words you will learn that there are more words than you can ever learn. The word //hand// floats above your hand like a small cloud over a lake. The word //hand// anchors your hand to this table, your hand is a warm stone I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world, which is round but not flat and has more colors than we can see.

It begins, it has an end, this is what you will come back to, this is your hand. || **Poem Analysis**

Juxtaposing the entire world and a small moment, Atwood uses descriptive narrative and figurative language to reveal the connection between words and what they signify. In “You Begin,” she describes the experience of drawing with her young daughter and the larger development of language as a person ages.

Atwood begins “You Begin” with a list of identified objects: “this is your hand, this is your eye, that is a fish…” Simplifying these items for her daughter’s understanding, Atwood also simplifies the world, “which is round and has only the colors of these nine crayons.” Having only a limited grasp of the English language, the simplified version of the earth is all that her daughter currently understands. However, once she has “learned these words,” she will understand the greatness of the world and that “there are more words” than can ever be learned. Moving from simple to complex descriptive, Atwood reveals that after grasping more fully the language, her daughter’s experience in the world will extend to view the world as “round but not flat” and having “more colors than we can see.”

Focusing on one example of the connection between words and their significances, Atwood uses simile and metaphor to describe her daughter’s hand and the word “//hand//.” Discrepancies between the meaning of the spoken word, written word, and physical hand combine to tell the truth that no matter what, “//hand//” is still a word and an object and has literal and figurative meaning. The spoken word floats above her daughter’s hand “like a small cloud over a lake” and the written word “anchors [her] hand to this table,” resonating as a sound and an image. Meanwhile, the physical hand “is a warm stone” that Atwood “holds between two words,” her own two hands. Playing with metaphor, Atwood shows how the physical hands are the words and how the words themselves are physical, thus destroying the distinction between the word “//hand//” and the hand itself. ||
 * **In the Secular Night**

In the secular night you wander around alone in your house. It’s two-thirty. Everyone has deserted you, or this is your story; you remember it from being sixteen, when the others were out somewhere, having a good time, or so you suspected, and you had to baby-sit. You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream and filled up the glass with grapejuice and ginger ale, and put on Glenn Miller with his big-band sound, and lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up the chimney, and cried for a while because you were not dancing, and then danced, by yourself, your mouth circled with purple.

Now, forty years later, things have changed, and it’s baby lima beans. It’s necessary to reserve a secret vice. This is what comes from forgetting to eat at the stated mealtimes. You simmer them carefully, drain, add cream and pepper, and amble up and down the stairs, scooping them up with your fingers right out of the bowl, talking to yourself out loud. You’d be surprised if you got an answer, but that part will come later.

There is so much silence between the words, you say. You say, The sensed absence of God and the sensed presence amount to much the same thing, only in reverse. You say, I have too much white clothing. You start to hum. Several hundred years ago this could have been mysticism or heresy. It isn’t now. Outside there are sirens. Someone’s been run over. The century grinds on. || **Poem Analysis **

Between second-person point of view and repetition, Atwood creates a mockingly critical tone to reveal the human need to clutter up the “silence between the words.” Time-traveling between age sixteen and age fifty-six, Atwood recalls lonely, “secular” nights that strip the sacredness from silence.

Wandering around “alone in your house” is the first use of the second-person and establishes a self-critical tone for the rest of “In the Secular Night.” Easily playing the martyr, “the story” is that “everyone has deserted you,” something that only an honest self-reflection could reveal. At sixteen, “you” ate ice cream, drank “grapejuice and ginger ale,” listened to music, cried, and danced, “your mouth circled with purple.” And still, “forty years later, things have changed,” age, the replacement of lima beans as the midnight snack; but, one constant remains. “You say” that there “is too much silence between words” and fill it, just as “you” used to do.

In the final stanza of “In the Secular Night,” Atwood repeatedly uses “you say” to emphasize the critique on mindless noise. “You say” you have too much white clothing, talk about silence, and find the essence of God in one sentence. That the “sense presence of God and the sense presence amount to much the same thing” would have been “heresy,” but now humans abuse language so much that they say anything. The inadequacy of language to even begin to describe God does not stop humans from speaking, and thus “the century grinds on” with many more “secular” nights to follow. ||
 * **True Stories**

i

Don’t ask for the true story; why do you need it?

It’s not what I set out with or what I carry.

What I’m sailing with, a knife, blue fire,

luck, a few good words that still work, and the tide.

ii.

The true story was lost on the way down to the beach, it’s something

I never had, that black tangle of branches in a shifting light,

my blurred footprints filling with salt

water, this handful of tiny bones, this owl’s kill;

a moon, crumpled papers, a coin, the glint of an old picnic,

that hollows made by lovers in sand a hundred

years ago: no clue.

iii.

The true story lies among the other stories,

a mess of colours, like jumbled clothing thrown off or away,

like hearts on marble, like syllables, like butchers’ discards.

The true story is vicious and multiple and untrue

after all. Why do you need it? Don’t ever

ask for the true story. || **Poem Analysis **

Through division and symmetry, Atwood reflects the “multiple” and “untrue” nature of the truth. Divulging what truth really is, in three parts “True Stories” questions whether truth exists at all.

Divided into three parts, Atwood examines the multiplicity of truth and gives three choices for the reader to decide which one is the truth. In the first part, truth is “not what I set out with or what I carry,” it is not “a knife, blue fire, luck,” words, or “the tide.” Revealing that “the true story was lost,” the second part examines the truth as “something I never had.” It is unclear whether Atwood implies that she never experienced “blurred footprints filling with salt water” or the lover-made “hollows” in the sand, or if she did so and is unable to own these intangible memories. Using a word with two meanings, the third part describes the true story as one that “lies among the other stories.” “Lies” implies both the placement of the story and the telling of an untruth, reflecting that in all three parts Atwood characterizes the true story as untrue and unnecessary.

Symmetrically reflecting the first two lines as the last three, the poem has come full circle and still not revealed anything. Asking “Why do you even need [the truth]?,” Atwood advises the reader to never “ask for the true story.” It is always a “jumbled” and “vicious” mess. By circling back to the beginning of the poem, no real truth is revealed, emphasizing the elusive nature of truth, and the possibility that it does not exist at all. ||
 * **A Sad Child**

You’re sad because you’re sad. It’s psychic. It’s the age. It’s chemical. Go see a shrink or take a pill, or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll you need to sleep.

Well, all children are sad but some get over it. Count your blessings. Better than that, buy a hat. Buy a coat or a pet. Take up dancing to forget.

Forget what? Your sadness, your shadow, whatever it was that was done to you the day of the lawn party when you came inside flushed with the sun, your mouth sulky with sugar, in your new dress with the ribbon and the ice-cream smear, and said to yourself in the bathroom, //I am not the favorite child.//

My darling, when it comes right down to it and the light fails and the fog rolls in and you’re trapped in your overturned body under a blanket or a burning car,

and the red flame is seeping out of you and igniting the tarmac beside your head or else the floor, or else the pillow, none of us is; or else we all are. || **Poem Analysis**

Through blatantly honest diction and disheartened imagery, Atwood reveals that sadness is a natural part of life. Sometimes “you’re sad because you’re sad” and there is no reason, and sometimes it manifests itself as depression. In “A Sad Child,” Atwood explores the theme of coping with sadness and depression.

Matter-of-factly stating “Well, all children are sad, but some get over it” suggests the reality of depression in all ages. Giving methods “to forget” about the “shadow” of sadness, the only options stated are buying material goods or doing physical activity. Stating that taking “up dancing” or buying “a coat or a pet” will erase the memory of the realization that “//I am not the favorite child//” makes light of the potentially dire situation. Material goods will not fix a person’s emotional and psychological feelings, and depression is not curable through the act of forgetting.

Contrasting beauty with despair, the visual imagery of “A Sad Child” reveals the consuming inability to escape pain. The girl “flushed with the sun” and wearing the “new dress with the ribbon” should be sunny and full of life, but instead on “the day of the lawn party” she comes to believe that she is “//not the favorite child//.” Again, this “darling” is “trapped” in her own body with “the red flame seeping out of” her, alluding to being caged inside herself or even to suicide. But at the end of the day, “none of us is” the favorite child, “or else we all are,” revealing that everyone suffers from sadness and loss, and it is the bond that makes us stronger, not weak as the little girl feels. ||
 * **Flowers**

Right now I am the flower girl. I bring fresh flowers, dump out the old ones, the greenish water that smells like dirty teeth into the bathroom sink, snip off the stem ends with surgical scissors I borrowed from the nursing station, put them into a jar I brought from home, because they don’t have vases in this hotel for the ill, place them on the table beside my father where he can’t see them because he won’t open his eyes.

He lies flattened under the white sheet. He says he is on a ship, And I can see it— the functional white walls, the minimal windows, the little bells, the rubbery footsteps of strangers, the whispering all around of the air-conditioner, or else the ocean, and he is on a ship; he’s giving us up, giving up everything but the breath is going in and out of his diminished body; minute by minute he’s sailing slowly away, away from us and our waving hands that do not wave.

The women come in, two of them, in blue; it’s no use being kind, in here, if you don’t have hands like theirs— large and capable, the hands of plump muscular angels, the ones that blow trumpets and lift swords. They shift him carefully, tuck in the corners. It hurts, but as little as possible. Pain is their lore. The rest of us are helpless amateurs.

A suffering you can neither cure nor enter— there are worse things, but not many. After a while it makes us impatient. Can’t we do anything but feel sorry? I sit there, watching the flowers in their pickle jar. He is asleep, or not.

I think: He looks like a turtle. Or: He looks erased. But somewhere in there, at the far end of the tunnel of pain and forgetting he’s trapped in is the same father I knew before, the one who carried the green canoe over the portage, the painter trailing, myself with the fishing rods, slipping on the wet boulders and slapping flies. That was the last time we went there.

There will be a last time for this also, bringing cut flowers to this white room. Sooner or later I too will have to give everything up, even the sorrow that comes with these flowers, even the anger, even the memory of how I brought them form a garden I will not longer have by then, and put them beside my dying father, hoping I could still save him. || **Poem Analysis**

Through achingly beautiful imagery and methodical narrative, Atwood explores the theme of loss in her poem “Flowers.” Realizing that “there will be a last time for” everything, Atwood reflects on the loss of her father and the eventual loss of these moments, her memory, and her entire existence.

Beginning with the statement that “right now I am the flower girl,” Atwood uses the idea of a new marriage to contrast with the finality of death. She brings “fresh flowers” and an attempt at a positive attitude, but all she can wonder is “can’t we do anything but feel sorry?” Her father “says he is on a ship” because of the similarities of his hospital room to a boat’s hull, the “minimal windows, the little bells, the rubbery footsteps of strangers.” Although he is not literally on a ship, Atwood’s father is on a journey to “the far end of the tunnel” and will give up everything as he is “sailing slowly away.”

Narrating her thoughts and actions, Atwood honestly and carefully lays out the details of the visit to her father at the “hotel for the ill.” She “dump[s] out the old [flowers],” borrows scissors from the nurses, and bluntly states that her “diminished” father “looks erased.” Realizing that the same father “who carried the canoe” many years ago is still present somewhere deep inside, Atwood knows that “there will be a last time for…bringing cut flowers” to his room. “Sooner or later” her recollections of this moment will be “erased” just like her father, along with her memories.

Faced with her father’s mortality, Atwood regresses to a young child and “flower girl” in hopes of turning back time. Finally, she understands that she “will have to give everything up,” even the hope that she “could still save him.” ||
 * **Bored**

All those times I was bored out of my mind. Holding the log while he sawed it. Holding the string while he measured, boards, distances between things, or pounded stakes into the ground for rows and rows of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored) weeded. Or sat in the back of the car, or sat still in boats, sat, sat, while at the prow, stern, wheel he drove, steered, paddled. It wasn’t even boredom, It was looking, looking hard and up close at the small details. Myopia. The worn gunwales, the intricate twill of the seat cover. The acid crumbs of loam, the granular pink rock, its igneous veins, the sea-fans of dry moss, the blackish and then the graying bristles on the back of his neck. Sometimes he would whistle, sometimes I would. The boring rhythm of doing things over and over, carrying the wood, drying the dishes. Such minutiae. It’s what the animals spend most of their time at, ferrying the sand, grain by grain, from their tunnels, shuffling the leaves in their burrows. He pointed such things out, and I would look at the whorled texture of his square finger, earth under the nail. Why do I remember it as sunnier all the time then, although it more often rained, and more birdsong? I would hardly wait to get the hell out of there to anywhere else. Perhaps though boredom is happier. It is for dogs or groundhogs. Now I wouldn’t be bored. Now I would know too much. Now I would know. || **‍‍Poem Analysis ‍ ‍** Between repetition and “myopia,” Atwood painfully reveals regret about how she remembers moments with her father while facing his death. Originally published in her award-winning collection //Morning in the Burned House//, “Bored” is one in a series of poems dissecting Atwood’s feelings with regard to her father’s battle with cancer and ultimate death. The poem is both nostalgic and self-criticizing, delving head-first into guilt and grief as a result of loss.

Atwood’s use of repetition acts as a time machine to her past. Showing her father “at the prow, stern, wheel” as he “drove, steered, paddled,” many lists feature the factual actions but lack an emotional remembrance. Employing anaphora with variations on the word “bored,” Atwood repeatedly criticizes herself for being “bored out of her mind” and failing to recognize the meaning of these moments. Her boredom was her own fault and could have been easily prevented had she taken the time to connect with her father and remember what is truly important and memorable: the emotion and personal interaction, not the “minutiae” of “acid crumbs of loam” and “warn gunwales.”

The “myopia” of Atwood’s vision is at once of a literal and figurative nature. She begins focused on the recall of small details through her physical eyes. Remembering the “earth under the nail” on her father’s finger, she reflects that even though these moments were “boring,” they are necessary for her to keep and treasure as a memory of her father. Atwood’s myopia manifests itself in a nearsightedness of the future. Questioning why she could “hardly wait to get the hell out of” spending time with her father, she regretfully realizes now that these moments are fleeting, and that she has run out of them. She could “hardly wait” to get anywhere else besides this state of boredom, but now she would choose to be with her father over any other place.

Taking a turn at the realization that “perhaps…boredom is happier,” Atwood recognizes that it may be true, but it is not easier. She understands that now she “wouldn’t be bored” because she knows too much about the brevity of life. Repeating “now.” she bluntly states “now I would know,” reflecting regret as a result of hindsight. Somberly hopeful, this realization is also cuttingly sensitive at the loss of her father. ||

Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret E. //Morning in the Burned House//. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Print. Atwood, Margaret E. //The Circle Game//. Toronto: House of Anasi, 1966. Print. Atwood, Margaret E. //True Stories//. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981. Print. Atwood, Margaret E. //Two-Headed Poems//. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1978. Print. []