Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale is what comes to mind for many when they hear her name, especially now. But Atwood is also a poet, and her poems have so many of the same elements that makes her prose so special, from haunting predictions of what is to come to touching lines that will stick in your mind.
Is/Not
When you should read this poem: When the rain is falling quietly and you have nowhere to be, and when the sadness comes creeping in. You should read this poem when you feel the sadness of fall, the season that reminds you that change is coming but that it does not to be bad. The world will be as it once was again, and for now there is the beauty of winter to appreciate.
Notable lines:
sex is not dentistry
the slick filling of aches and cavities
Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing
When you should read this poem: You are angry. You feel the rage of generations of women deep in your bones, the kind of rage that seethes quietly under your skin. Read this poem when you are angry and when you need someone else to feel angry with you.
Notable lines:
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything’s for sale,
and piecemeal.
The Loneliness of the Military Historian
When you should read this poem: You should read this when you need to remember the woman who came before, who fought and died so you could live. You should read this when you begin to forget who you came from. Read this when you look at America and feel nauseous. She will not comfort you, but she will stand with you.
Notable lines:
Also statistics:
for every year of peace there have been four hundred
years of war.
They are hostile nations
When you should read this poem: When you are thinking of your ex, who you do not love but you also do not hate, this poem will remind you that fighting is not always the best choice. Sometimes you must slip softly into the dark night.
Notable lines:
See, we are alone in
the dormant field, the snow
that cannot be eaten or captured