The Animals in that Country by Margaret Atwood

One of the joys of our club reads is that they prompt so much digging in the stacks and researching into books to read. And while I was digging about for 1968 I realised that one of the wonderful Margaret Atwood’s poetry books had been published in that year – which was very exciting…

Atwood’s poetry is a place I haven’t gone before; I love her fiction and non-fiction writings of all sorts, but for some reason have never picked up the selected poetry volume of hers I own. Unfortunately, getting hold of a copy of the actual 1968 book, “The Animals in that Country” has proved beyond me at the moment, as they’re so expensive, so I’ve had to go with those poems which made it into the “Selected” volume…

 

I am the space you desecrate
as you pass through.

There are 14 works extracted from the original collection and in fact it’s worth reminding ourselves that Atwood started her writing career as a poet – her first collection was published in 1961 and this was her fifth. I’m not sure quite what I was expecting from Margaret Atwood’s poetry but it was the kind of verse that appealed to me from the start – beautifully written, immediate and very thought-provoking.

Her subjects range from riffing on Frankenstein and his monster, through the vagaries of living in rented accommodation to the dangers of reading newspapers, and always in a particularly Atwoodian turn of phrase and mind. A particular stand-out for me was “I Was Reading a Scientific Article”, a love poem inspired by an image of the brain, which was very resonant. In fact, there are several very beautiful love poems, including this short one which I want to share here:

Axiom

Axiom: you are a sea.
Your eye-
lids curve over chaos.

My hands
where they touch you, create
small inhabited islands

Soon you will be
all earth: a known
land, a country.

The 14 titles I read here were all marvellous, and have left me itching to explore more of this book.  I really don’t know why I haven’t read Atwood’s poetry before (I know that Middle Child has – in fact, I think she has this book too), particularly as this was the first form her published writing took.

So – a successful first read for the #1968club. There is a short interview with Atwood on the CBC site here from 1968, where she discusses poetry, and it’s worth hearing (in fact, the CBC site seems to have a number of Atwood recordings to be explored).  And if I wasn’t focusing on 1968 this week I suspect I’d be pulling more Atwood books off the shelf!! 🙂