15+ Must-Read Margaret Atwood Poems

(15 to start, 20+ to explore)

Margaret Atwood is a well-loved contemporary Canadian author. She’s written numerous fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books. The latter includes Dearly: New Poems, The Circle Game, and Power Politics. Her novels include ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘The Robber Bride’. She’s won numerous awards, including the Man Booker Prize.
Her poems, often inspired by fairytales, are best known for their feminist perspective. Frequently, they conclude with a twist of irony, adding depth and unexpected turns to her narratives.

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Themes: Love, Nature

Topic: Animals

Form: Free Verse

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The animals in that country

‘The animals in that country’ portrays a world where animals are esteemed as equals to humans, with a unique blend of human and animal traits.

‘The animals in that country,’ Is one of Atwood's finest poems. The speaker describes a world in which animals are judged to have the same worth as human beings. The text speaks about a new place, a “country” in which animals have human faces. It is noted for its lack of distinction between human and non-human animals. Here, the foxes are not hunted, the cats are “ceremonial” and the bulls are allowed to die valiant deaths.

even the wolves, holding resonant

conversations in their

forests thickened with legend.

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Theme: Nature

Topic: Life

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The Moment

Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Moment’ explores themes of ownership and human interaction with nature, highlighting the illusion of control over the natural world.

In ‘The Moment, ’ Atwood speaks on ownership and how humans move through the world. The poem describes the interactions one character has with the natural world. They have things they feel they can claim ownership over. Things change, and the speaker experiences a withdrawal from nature. When they first seemed confident in their world, nothing is right now. This is because they decided that they own this part of the world. The construction of “ownership” separated them from nature.

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,

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You Begin

Atwood’s poem is a heartfelt monologue to a child, using simple, beautiful imagery to unveil the vastness of the world.

In this poem, the speaker addresses her son or daughter, telling them about hands, eyes, fish, and paper. Atwood uses beautifully simple images, such as the mouth as an “O / or a moon,” that, step by step, show the world to a child. She states to the child that “there are more / words than you can ever learn.” By the end of the poem, the speaker brings the poem back around to her child’s hand. It all comes back when she says, “to, this your hand.”

You begin this way:

this is your hand,

this is your eye,

that is a fish, blue and flat

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Topics: Animals, Sky, Sun

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Bull Song

‘Bull Song’ by Margaret Atwood describes the short life of a bull who is forced to fight in a ring against human “gods” and is then cut up for the victors.

The speaker describes the short life of a bull who is forced to fight in a ring against human “gods.” The poem begins with the speaker stating that he is looking down at the “wet dust,” listening to the cheering of the “flies,” or spectators, and analyzing the pain in his shoulder. It is clear from the second stanza that the speaker is in fact a bull who has been forced to fight matadors and picadors in a ring.

For me there was no audience

no brass music either,

only wet dust, the cheers

buzzing at me like flies,

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Is/Not

Margaret Atwood’s unconventional love poem challenges the notion of understanding love through science, using medical language to negate its study.

This piece is an untraditional love poem that compares what love is to what it is not. It is not something that one can study and come to a full understanding of. Nor, the speaker adds, is her love for her “doctor” or her “cure.” There is no one that has “that power.” Through the poem, she wants to make clear that one can’t come to an understanding of what love is through science; it is not definable or wieldable.

Love is not a profession

genteel or otherwise

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Crow Song

In ‘Crow Song,’ the speaker intimately addresses crows, highlighting their nature and drawing parallels between their behavior and human society

In this poem, the speaker is talking to the crows. The speaker goes into her deep connection with the birds. She feels they are her “people,” but they ignore her. She raises a banner to them, but they have faced “too many stray bullets” and have “gravel, skeptical” eyes. In the last lines of the text, the similarities between humans and crows grow more and more pronounced. They have endless wars and too many leaders, as do human beings.

In the arid sun, over the field

where the corn has rotted and then

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Hesitations Outside the Door

A concise piece exploring the nature of self-deception, where the speaker reflects on the ineffectiveness of her own lies in unlocking new paths.

In this piece, the speaker discusses the nature of lies, especially when told within one’s mind. She thinks she has been telling the “wrong” ones as they haven’t been helping her. If she’d lied well, then they would’ve been able to manifest keys and open doors. But, unfortunately, that isn’t the case, and she is stuck with the “door…closed”. The speaker emphasizes her solitude in a kitchen space on the other side of a door she’d like to open.

I’m telling the wrong lies,

they are not even useful.

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Theme: Relationships

Emotion:

Boredom

Topics: Life, Life Struggles, Suffering

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Bored

‘Bored’ by Margaret Atwood presents the speaker’s fluid thoughts ruminating on a complex experience of boredom throughout life.

This poem speaks on the nature of life and how the speaker has been living it. There has been someone in her life who has been controlling her passively and directly. The speaker can look back on her life and see it for what it is. Her previous boring moments are seen in a new light, and she wonders if, in the end, these were the times when she was truly happy when no one was in control of her.

All those times I was bored

out of my mind. Holding the log

while he sawed it. Holding

the string while he measured, boards,

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Flying Inside Your Own Body

‘Flying Inside Your Own Body’ by Margaret Atwood speaks on the freedom one can achieve in the dream world, verses the restrictions of reality.

In this piece, Atwood uses the images of the lungs and breath to speak on freedom and joy. Inside of one’s body, she depicts as a beautiful and adventurous place. When you breathe in, you fill yourself with helium and are imbued, like a bird, with the ability to fly. But she adds it is only in dreams this can happen. When a dreamer wakes up, their heart is “a shaken fist,” and the dust in the air clogs their breath.

Your lungs fill & spread themselves,

wings of pink blood, and your bones

empty themselves and become hollow.

#10

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Sekhmet, The Lion-Headed Goddess Of War

In this poem, Atwood reimagines Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess, portraying her yearning to leave the confines of a museum and return to her known world.

In this poem, Margaret Atwood is in familiar territory, using myth and legend to construct new narratives. In this case, the speaker is Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess, daughter of the sun god Ra. Rather than follow the traditional storyline, she depicts the goddess as a warrior queen who is not content to sit in a museum with another god, Osiris. She’d much prefer to escape the crowds of children and return to the world she used to know.

He was the sort of man

who wouldn't hurt a fly.

Many flies are now alive

while he is not.

#11

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Morning in the Burned House

Margaret Atwood’s ‘Morning in the Burned House’ is an eerie portrait of a child eating breakfast in the ashes of her burned home. Through the speaker’s perspective, Atwood vividly depicts the thought process of someone grieving a terrible loss.

As the title of one of her poetry collections, 'Morning in the Burned House' is an excellent representation of Atwood's poetry. Its unnerving storyline and simple but highly clever language are characteristics of her best work.

In the burned house I am eating breakfast.

You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,

yet here I am.

#12

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The City Planners

‘The City Planners’ by Margaret Atwood is an image-rich poem in which the poet depicts the fundamentally flawed nature of the suburbs.

This poem resonates contends with Atwood's most popular themes by scrutinizing the artificial nature of suburban spaces. She delves into how city planning can impact the psychology of its residents, reflecting a pervasive critique of structured, sterile environments. This is consistent with her broader oeuvre, which often interrogates systems of control and their impact on individuals.

Cruising these residential Sunday

streets in dry August sunlight:

what offends us is

the sanities:

#13

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Half Hanged Mary

‘Half Hanged Mary’ by Atwood narrates her ancestor Mary Webster’s survival from a witch trial hanging, highlighting her resilience.

Margaret Atwood is a famous Canadian writer known for her novels, poems, and essays. She often writes about power, survival, and the struggles of women. 'Half-Hanged Mary' is one of her well-known poems, but she is most famous for The Handmaid’s Tale. This poem stands out because it tells the true story of Mary Webster, a woman accused of witchcraft who survived being hanged.

Rumour was loose in the air

hunting for some neck to land on.

I was milking the cow,

the barn door open to the sunset

#14

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A Sad Child

‘A Sad Child’ by Atwood directly addresses sorrow, urging readers to confront and move past sadness to live fully.

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

#15

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Death of a Young Son by Drowning

‘Death of a Young Son by Drowning’ by Margaret Atwood is a beautiful and impactful poem about the death of Susanna Moodie’s young son. Atwood explores the grief of the mother and how her life changed.

He, who navigated with success

the dangerous river of his own birth

once more set forth

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