Introduction
Among the contemporary poets, Margaret Atwood is a name which resonates highly among the literary society. Aged 75 years as of today, she has become face of the feminist critic, while also writing several famous prose and poetry alike. Some of the most common themes in her poetry are -- feminism, westernisation versus civilisation, exploitation of nature etc. She became an established and well read author in the very early phases of her writing career, owing much to the fact that her poetry is realistic and contemporary in nature. For the very reason, I have decided to work on her writings.
In the paragraphs that follow, we will be studying three of the several magnificent poems written by Margaret Atwood, namely -- "A Sad Child", "The Moment" and "This is a Photograph of Me". We will be studying the poetry form, and style while also comparing the three poems, their themes and the style.
A Sad Child
The poem, "A Sad Child" is about how people these days face an intermittent depression. Everyone is sad these days. It is hard to escape this sadness as it is “psychic. It is age. It is chemical" (2). The poet explains to the reader (a sad one), that the reason of his sadness is "“You’re sad because you’re sad" (1). While all children are sad, some of the kids find a way of coping with this sadness. The poet further elucidates various ways that can help the reader in coping with the sadness. The reader could visit a shrink, or simply consider the sadness as a toy -- "like an eyeless doll" ( -- and hug it close. Just the way a doll helps a kid escape the world into a world of fantasy; this imaginary doll of misery can also help this sad child escape his sadness. The simile of the "eyeless doll" (4) has been well placed and thought about, making the right impact for the reader. The reader further tells about some more materialistic ways of coping with sadness -- for instance, "buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet. Take up dancing to forget" (9-10). One of the reasons the reader gives later in the poem for his sadness is because "I am not the favorite child" (20). This is one of the most profound sentences Atwood has written in this poem. The reasons for depression have become so petty that simple reason such as not being the favourite child is enough to cause misery to a child. Then again, it is a beautiful representation of the child's psychology and his way of thinking. The emotional pain of this realization is then equated with the physical pain of an image that the poet presents before the reader -- "you're trapped in your overturned body, under a blanket or burning car" (24-25). The poet beautifully concludes the poem by saying "none of us is; or else we all are" (29-30), which explains how all of us suffer from the problem of depression or sadness at some point of time. All of us are consumed by the fire of sadness sometime; those who are not are the ones who do not live. The poem is about the universal issue of depression that the world today faces. Depression has become of the most common ailments to ail the human kind and the poem is a memoir to this problem at helm.
In the poem, the poet uses tools such as imagery to help enhance the meaning of the poem to the reader. The style of the poem is a free verse, while the form is conversational.
The Moment
The poet was born and brought up, for a majority of times, in the jungles of Canada. This led to her love for the nature and deep understanding of how nature works. In the poem, "The Moment", the poet explores the relationship between the nature and the reader or human being in general. The poem begins with the author asking the reader how he or she feels when they are standing in their home or a piece of land, even if it is small. If the reader responds in saying "I own this" (6), the poet admonishes at once. According to her, the humans have come to believe that they were the ones that found nature and hence, enslaved the nature to work for their own good. However, the truth is far from it. In fact, it is the nature which found the humans and gave them shelter to grow. "You own nothing. You were a visitor" (13-14), is how the nature responds. As soon as you say you own nature, the nature takes withdraws from you -- "trees unloose their soft arms from around you" (8). The poet utilizes the use of excellent imageries in lines like these to establish the extant of distaste the nature will feel for humans. It is a way of the poet telling that once the humans become arrogant, the nature becomes distant too and stops protecting the humans. Probably one of the best written poetry by Margaret Atwood, the poem is a validation of the utter truth which the humans are berating and forgetting all the time -- that we belong to the nature and not "the other way round" (18). The poem hold contemporary value as one of the major problems of the world today is global warming, which is happening chiefly because of the humans' so-called ownership of the nature.
The poem is divided into three stanzas and follows a free verse. The poem has inconsistent meter and does not have a rhyme.
This is a Photograph of Me
Being a feminist that Atwood was, this particular poem, "This is a Photograph of Me" represents how foolishly the men within the society depict the women. The poem is about the poet (who we later realize is dead (hypothetically)), whose photograph is built before us. A work of extremely heightened imagery, the poet begins with first introducing the photograph to the reader in the title of the poem. She then herself goes on to explain that the photograph is quite old and has therefore become a little blurred. Nevertheless, the lines of the house in the background can be seen and a tree looming in the corner of the photograph. She further creates the image within the photograph by saying that "In the background there is a lake, and beyond that, some low hills" (13-14). It is only once the picture is complete thence that the poet says, "The photograph was taken, the day after I drowned" (15-16), leaving the reader in a state of confusion and embarrassment at being caught unawares. These lines also impart a sort of cruelty to the entire imagery of the photograph being presented before us. The later part of the poem is a valediction of the poet, urging the reader to look closely at the surface beneath the lake for the poet is there and can be seen (in a satirical way).
The poem is the representation of the fact that women are misrepresented in the patriarchal society. The way women are written about is a complete falsification of the truth about women. Being the feminist that Atwood was, she has completely turned this poem into a satire on those who think they have the authority to write about women and women-centric issues. Further, any contribution to the society by women is ignored and shadowed upon; just the way author (drowned in the lake) can be (hypothetically seen).
The poem uses a free verse, even as not much attention is given to the meter of the poem.
Comparison and Contrasting
In all the three poems discussed above, the poet uses free verse of form and as Atwood herself acknowledged once, not much attention is given to the meter of the poem. Atwood deals with the contemporary themes in all three poems. While the first one deals with the universal problem of depression, the second one is that of the abuse of nature and its resources and the third one discusses the problem of females in the patriarchal society. All the three poems utilize the use of imagery to its utmost, much to the credit of the poet. One of the reasons why Margaret Atwood has become such well read authors of her time is the selection of her themes. All her themes are contemporary in nature, dealing with issues that people face in their day to day lives these days.
