Dearly: Poems

Description

A landmark collection from one of contemporary poetry's most highly regarded names 'A source of uncompromising elemental warmth' Ali Smith By turns moving, playful and wise, the poems gathered in Dearly are about absences and endings, ageing and retrospection, but also about gifts and renewals. They explore bodies and minds in flux, as well as the everyday objects and rituals that embed us in the present. Werewolves, sirens and dreams make their appearance, as do various forms of animal life and fragments of our damaged environment. Dearly is a pure Atwood delight, and long-term readers and new fans alike will treasure its insight, empathy and humour. BOOK OF THE YEAR OBSERVER, FINANCIAL TIMES

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. She established herself as a poet in the 1960s and has published sixteen books of poems, most recently The Door in 2007. Her novels include Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid's Tale, went back into the bestseller charts in 2017, when the Handmaids became a symbol of resistance against the disempowerment of women, and with the release of the award-winning Channel 4 TV series. Its sequel, The Testaments, was published in 2019 and was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. Atwood has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade and the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Here we see Atwood at the height of her poetic powers * New York Times Book Review * A poignant yet playful collection of verse, about endings and departures, it is sliced with clever, sharp humour * Daily Telegraph * This collection of poems is a reckoning with the past that comes from a place of wisdom and control . . . You can almost hear her speaking voice, see the twinkle in her eye . . . wonderfully observed * Observer * Atwood's first poetry collection in over a decade is intimate, lingering delicately between the human and the natural, and this world and the next * New Statesman * She's become world famous for The Handmaid's Tale, and jointly won the 2019 Booker Prize for The Testaments, but Canadian author Margaret Atwood was once better known as a poet . . . this new volume brings together some of her favourite themes, from zombies, werewolves and aliens, to the passage of time and the most pressing political issues of the day * Evening Standard *