"I see you, in darkness, walking."
It is inevitable that a book of poetry contains hits and misses for every reader. I personally enjoyed the poems in The Door that were more visceral and explicit. A prime example would be her poem "Secrecy":
Secrecy flows through you,
a different kind of blood.
It's as if you've eaten it
like a bad candy,
taken it into your mouth,
let it melt sweetly on your tongue,
then allowed it to slide down your throat
like the reverse of uttering,
a word dissolved
into its glottals and sibilants,
a slow intake of breath --
And now it's in you, secrecy.
Ancient and vicious, luscious
as dark velvet.
It blooms in you,
a poppy made of ink.
You can think of nothing else.
Once you have it, you want more.
What power it gives you!
Power of knowing without being known,
power of the stone door,
power of the iron veil,
power of the crushed fingers,
power of the drowned bones
crying out from the bottom of the well.
Her descriptions and settings are lyrical without being arcane, which can be a rare thing among gifted poets. She describes being captivated by the colors (and the smell) of gasoline in a puddle of water as a child, feeling thunderstruck by a stranger's poetry reading, and mourning a dead cat with empathy.
"Dutiful" struck a chord with me as I used to be "the good child" in the family, always sacrificing myself and my time for others until I learned to stand up for myself. The poem that hit me the hardest, though, would have to be "Another Visit to the Oracle". Atwood sums up my artistic intentions with a few choice verses:
What would you prefer?
You'd like me to amuse you?
Do some jigs, or pranks?
...
That's not what I do.
What I do: I see
in darkness. I see
darkness. I see you.
...
That's what I do:
I tell dark stories
before and after they come true.
Atwood has the ability to connect with all kinds of readers; this is her gift, and we're lucky to have her.
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