★★★☆☆ Has Margaret Atwood ever experienced joy?

The Circle Game

Margaret Atwood

This new Anansi Press anniversary edition of Margaret Atwood's The Circle Game begins with an introduction by Suzanne Buffam. Buffam spends much of her introduction telling you what a great poem "This is a Photograph of me" is. After spoiling the big reveal of that poem, she goes on to make a few general remarks about Atwood and poetry in general. Here's a bit of advice to readers: read "This is a Photograph of me" first -- it's the first poem in the book -- then go back and read Buffam's introduction, and finally proceed to the rest of the poems.

"This is a Photograph of me" is indeed a great poem, the best in the book, in my opinion, and worth the time I took to read the book. But aside from that, I found The Circle Game an extremely bleak experience. If Atwood has ever experienced joy, you would not figure it out from this collection.

The pronouns in many of the poems are "we" and "you". You will quickly realize that "we" is a woman and a man, and "you" is the man. These poems, collectively, are very grim. That doesn't make them bad poems, but a little of this goes a long way. After a while I was feeling a desire to move away from a clearly joyless relationship and move on to some other topic.

Your mileage may vary, of course. Poetry is a personal experience. Atwood is obviously a more than competent poet. You may find her speaking directly to something within you, as I did not.

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