Margaret Atwood’s The Door was published in 2007, and as such is a reflection on life from a position of maturity. Atwood was born in 1939, and the poems reflect her growing realization that she is aging. Some of the poems are sad. Some seem almost bitter. The volume I got from the library also had an audio disc of Atwood reading half of the poems – a touch that gave these poems a personality beyond the mere(!) words.

Please keep in mind that I’m not a poetry critic; I just like these poems. I’m still learning how to read poetry and I have no idea how to talk about it. But I enjoyed the experience of reading this volume of poetry.

More thoughts on my blog

I really enjoyed reading The Door. Atwood is wry and vivid--with a deft hand at verbal construction. Every word is deliberate, articulate, meaningful. Reading each poem is sort of like the Monty Hall game show, except there are no goats behind the doors, just cars, gems, something shiny and interesting. Well on second thought, if there was a goat, it would be a magic goat that could probably tell the future. (more)

I have most of Atwood’s fiction – it has a certain charm: sometimes humorous, sometimes cautionary, almost always nostalgic. I have enjoyed all her work, particularly Cat’s Eye, my clear-cut favorite. This is my first volume of her poetry, and I have to say they all share a consistent voice, sometimes discordant and jarring, sometimes with mildly disturbing images, sometimes (rarely) lyrical. Several of the poems I liked a lot, and most others were okay.

This collection needs going over several more times before I can rate it. Atwood’s voice comes out clear, though, and something makes me want to crawl inside these poems and see what is really there. A few are obscure to me. About 40 of the fifty poems are collected on a CD read by Atwood.

--Jim, 4/6/08