Review by Library Journal Review
Atwood is considered by many to be among Canada's finest writers, and her new collection should support that opinion. Thematically complex, her poetry is difficult to categorize: when she writes about Canada, as in ``Four Small Elegies,'' she goes beyond a regional perspective; and though a feminist, she does not necessarily evoke pacifism. Violence, she discovers, is implicit in human nature, as shown in the snake poem ``She'': ``He's our idea of a bad time, we are his./ I say he out of habit. It could be she. '' Fatalistic and mordant, her diction may be post-modern but is neither experimental nor obscure. Ivan Arguelles, Univ. of California at Berkeley Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
