Harnessing the power of poetry; Atwood should draw people back to verse FINAL Edition

• Published in: The Ottawa citizen (1986)
• Main Author: Morton, Colin
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ottawa, Ont Postmedia Network Inc 22.01.1995
• ISSN: 0839-3222

From her first book, The Circle Game, which won the 1967 Governor General's Award, Atwood's landscapes and dreamscapes captivated readers with images that have endured in memory and become part of the way many of us define ourselves. Atwood's worldwide acclaim as a novelist has overshadowed her poetry for many years now, but with Morning in the Burned House, her first book of new poems in a decade, Atwood has the potential to do what few other writers could do -- bring an aging public back to poetry. If the thousands who devotedly read each of her novels pick up Morning in the Burned House, they will find the same sharp wit and penetrating insights that delight them in Atwood's fiction. They may also be surprised to find the poetry so approachable, the language so compelling and alive, the situations so close to home. This book just might seize another generation of readers with the sense of discovery that swept over university literature departments with each new Margaret Atwood book a quarter-century ago.