{"id":8650,"date":"2008-12-03T06:37:07","date_gmt":"2008-12-03T11:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=8650"},"modified":"2022-10-16T12:44:19","modified_gmt":"2022-10-16T16:44:19","slug":"the-books-power-politics-margaret-atwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=8650","title":{"rendered":"The Books: \u201cPower Politics\u201d (Margaret Atwood)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daily Book Excerpt: Poetry<\/p>\n

Power Politics: Poems<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Margaret Atwood<\/p>\n

I was obsessed with this book of poetry in college. I had just discovered Margaret Atwood. I read The Handmaid’s Tale: A Novel<\/a>\"\"<\/i> (excerpt here<\/a>) on my brother’s recommendation and I basically flipped out. Here was a voice I was ready to hear. Here was a voice that scared me, challenged me, was uncompromising, angry, and yet also complex. It was not a simplistic treatise, that book. What hooked me in (“like a hook into an eye”) was the VOICE. The VOICE of Offred just pierced me. I felt like I had never read such a captivating voice. There was a deadness to her, her descriptions of the Commander’s house, and what she ate – a very rote almost robotic way of speaking – but by the end of the book I was put through the wringer. Then began a process of reading everything she had ever written. All of her books were in the University library, so that was where I began. That was how I found out that Margaret Atwood was a poet first (or, let’s say, she was PUBLISHED as a poet first). I read her The Journals of Susanna Moodie: Poems<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, which I loved and haven’t read in years. I think I need to own that book. Haven’t thought about it in a long time but I got to know a lot more about Margaret Atwood and her kind of bravura by reading her poetry.<\/p>\n

Power Politics<\/i> was published in 1971, the year before her second book was published, Surfacing<\/a>\"\"<\/i> (that was the book that got her attention, serious literary attention). But Power Politics<\/i> came first. It was just re-released in honor of its 25th anniversary of publication. The book was a big deal. It was 1971. Power Politics<\/i> is the violent excavation of a relationship that is falling apart. Very few of the poems have names. No names are given … the other character in these poems, besides the first-person narrator is either “he” or “you”. The entire book reads like an indictment, and you can see why it really hit a nerve, in 1971. As always, though, Atwood’s narrator does not spare herself. That’s one of the things I think is missed about Atwood’s more blatant feminist works – is that women are dealt with fairly, yes, but so are men. Men are isolated, too. Men want intimacy, reality – they don’t want “power politics” either. It is the death-grip of larger forces that impact personal relationships (personal is political, and all that) – but I think some people read The Handmaid’s Tale<\/i> and miss how much compassion she has for the men in it. Even the Commander! The sections where Offred lets herself remember her husband Luke are shattering. Luke, too, was affected by the new rules limiting women’s freedom. He wasn’t like, “Thank God. My wife is now my slave. Halleluia, I have been waiting for this day.” Being into Iranian cinema like I am, I can see the same thing happening in their films. Women’s position in that society suck for women, of course, but it leaves husbands helpless and dominated as well. (See my review on Leila<\/i><\/a>). Atwood had titanic rage, naturally she did … but her work is a bit more complex than she sometimes is given credit for. The first-person narrator in Power Politics<\/i> doesn’t come off as any prize. She is angry, passive, and depressive. The “power politics” of the title is one of the reasons (I think) that the book went off like such a bomb at the time it came out. Not to mention the first poem on the first page which reads:<\/p>\n

you fit into me
\nlike a hook into an eye<\/p>\n

a fish hook
\nan open eye<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ouch. That’s all there is on the first page so it’s all blank white space with those few words in the bottom right-hand corner. It’s scary just looking at it, not to mention the violence and bloodiness inherent in those words. It’s a sucker-punch. You think it will go one way – “you fit into me” could be construed as romantic or sexual … but then she rips the rug out from under you by putting the image of a fish hook into your head.<\/p>\n

The whole book is like that.<\/p>\n

It’s also really important to remember that Atwood put Canadian literature on the map. She is eloquent about what it was like for her in the early days, with her first books. There was no set-up the way there is in the States for new authors. She drove around to bookstores in her own station wagon and gave impromptu readings. There is a literary SCENE in the States … there wasn’t one in Canada until she came along. There were others, of course, she was part of the first wave … but Power Politics<\/i> helped make Canada seem important. (Not as a nation … I know it’s important to itself as a nation – I am talking about being perceived as a place where ART happens). Those early Canadian authors were making it up as they went along. They needed to be local. Most good art is local and cannot be removed from the cultural context from which it sprung. Atwood helps explain<\/i> Canada. Now, Power Politics<\/i> has nothing to do with Canada. It is a ruthless love poem, from beginning to end, but its relevance to the larger political issues of the day, the gender wars going on, women’s rights, all that … made her voice seem louder than others, and turned all eyes to Canada.<\/p>\n

Here is one of the poems in this chilly raging little volume.<\/p>\n

\nHe shifts from east to west<\/i><\/p>\n

Because we have no history
\nI construct one for you<\/p>\n

making use of what
\nthere is, parts of other people’s
\nlives, paragraphs
\nI invent, now and then
\nan object, a watch, a picture
\nyou claim as yours<\/p>\n

(What did go on in that red
\nbrick building with the fire
\nescape? Which river?)<\/p>\n

(You said you took
\nthe boat, you forget too much.)<\/p>\n

I locate you on streets, in cities
\nI’ve never seen, you walk
\nagainst a background crowded
\nwith lifelike detail<\/p>\n

which crumbles and turns grey
\nwhen I look too closely.<\/p>\n

Why should I need
\nto explain you, perhaps
\nthis is the right place for you<\/p>\n

The mountains in this hard
\nclear vacancy are blue tin
\nedges, you appear
\nwithout prelude midway between
\nmy eyes and the nearest trees,<\/p>\n

your colours bright, your
\noutline flattened<\/p>\n

suspended in the air with no more
\nreason for occurring
\nexactly here than this billboard,
\nthis highway or that cloud.<\/p>\n

\n