Poetry Collection - Aislinn Langley

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been awarded numerous awards such as the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the  Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. Her body of work includes The Handmaiden's Tale and the poetry collection in question: Morning in the Burned House. Many of the poems of this collection are rather dark or introspective. "A Sad Child" expresses a childish loneliness, fear, and disappointment people find in themselves while "Red Fox" describes the isolation and dogged survival of a starved vixen in the winter.


 Atwood also explores the inevitability of death, a common theme of hers, in "Red Fox." The speaker stands in a cemetery, an old and obvious symbol of death, and observes an old red fox crossing the ice. The speaker contemplates the desperation of the starving fox, reasoning that its cunning and capacity for deceit will not save it from death itself. The speaker moves on to contemplate how hunger and threats to a person's life makes them drop any ideals or morals they hold dear, saying "Hunger corrupts, and absolute hunger / corrupts absolutely," shattering the image of a mother ready to give her own life for her children with the image of Hansel and Gretel: "dumped in the forest because their parents were starving." The fox seeks only to feed itself, even if it means robbing a creature of life to maintain its own.


Atwood's poems are moving in their own respect, but somewhat deadening. Reading them creates a weight on a reader which pushes them to contemplate their world, but also makes them weary. It's good poetry, too depressing for my tastes during first hour. It's too early in the day for that level of muted sadness and cynicism.


"Red Fox"
from
Atwood, Margaret. Morning in the Burned House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Print.