The Door

by Margaret Atwood, Phoebe Larmore

The Door, Margaret Atwood’s first book of poetry since her award-winning Morning in the Burned House, is a magnificent achievement. These fifty lucid, urgent poems range in tone from lyric to ironic to meditative to prophetic, and in subject from the personal to the political, viewed in its broadest sense. They investigate the mysterious writing of poetry itself, as well as the passage of time and our shared sense of mortality.
Brave and compassionate, The Door interrogates the certainties that we build our lives on, and reminds us once again of Margaret Atwood’s unique accomplishments as one of the finest and most celebrated writers of our time.

Genres: Poetry, Canada, Fiction, Canadian Literature, 21st Century, Adult, Literature

120 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth ­ in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.

Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.

Reviews

[Henk · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first poetry bundle I ever read consciously, from one of my favourite authors. Very enjoyable! - 4.5 stars
I must admit I have little to no experience with reviewing poetry, but one of my goals was to diversify and challenge myself in 2020 in terms of reading, so this collection of the great Margaret Atwood seemed a good start.
I was pleasantly surprised with the accessibility of this work and to find the same wry humour and societal engagement I know from Atwood her novels.
Also the poems are clustered in five distinct sections, making reviewing a bit easier based on thematic similarities.

Part I has reflections on childhood, the seasons, a dead cat, the start of her father's passion for science and the slow decay of her mother. Blackie in Antarctica was my favourite poem, with the image of a beloved deceased cat stuck in the freezer besides the meat, in a paradise for carnivores, being especially powerful, touching and quite hilarious.

Part II is more dark, with poems about the nature of poetry and selling your heart (It was either that or the soul.). Also the realization that your children can get hurt (because there’s nothing you can do, because you didn’t tell them not to, because you didn’t think you needed to and now there’s all this broken glass and your children stand red-handed) comes back in the poem Your Children Cut Their Hands...
There is also gardening, but the poem I liked the most was Owl and Pussycat, Some Years Later. This one is a bit longer and tells of the careers of two artist, tolerated, even celebrated (In ten years you’ll be on a stamp, where anyone at all can lick you), but still doubting the fundamental value of their talents. Aging comes back eloquently (we were born with mortality’s hook in us, and year by year it drags us where we’re going: down).

Part III has society and actuality pouring in, from poems on war photos, tourism, the news to climate change (If the weather is listening at all it’s not to us. Is it our fault? Did we cause the wreckage by breathing? All we wanted was a happy life, and for things to go on as they used to.)
The two poems of this section that I liked best had resistance to groupthink as a topic in The Last Rational Man, about a senator defining Caligula and the long shadow of conflict in Nobody Cares Who Wins: It’s never in the past, defeat. It soaks into the present, it stains even the morning sun the colour of burnt earth. At last it breaks the surface. It bursts. It bursts into song. Long songs, you understand. They go on and on.

Part IV comprises some longer poems which center on the search for meaning and what happens when it is not found. There’s implied violence, there are pitchforks, power dynamics and an oracle that’s all about mindfucks since Both your future and your past are in your head, because where else could they be?.
I liked Possible Activities, about the nature of truth, most: A harmless activity, sort of like knitting, until you go too far with it and they bring out the nooses and matches..

Part V starts of with poems on human emotions like greed, helpfulness, duty and whatever it is that the orchestra aboard the sinking Titanic had as emotions.
And then we shift to reindeer moss and the Arctic, in poems that I think were inspired by the same trip as the short story Stone Mattress
The final story, the titular The Door, I liked best of this section. It reminded me in set up to One Day and in terms of feelings it evoked to the instrumental song Death is Only a Door from the soundtrack of Cloud Atlas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcyxY...)

[capture stories · Rating 4 out of 5]

Autumn's vibes are filling the air. Assuming this would be a good time for reading up on one or two poetry, I picked up Margaret Atwood’s poetry book 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘿𝙤𝙤𝙧, which debuted in 1968. Foreseeable, whimsical Atwood takes her readers to ponder the world through her lens that so very often is beautiful, cynical, churn in the feelings, and turning memories into deep foreboding. Sure enough, in between stanzas, readers will find the author's hallmark of wits and humor that made a knowing jump here and there but somehow landed just on the right foot, a narrow escape from touches of sarcasm. The poems come in two, three, and four lines or more, then in between words, the forbidding overstatement that has the swagger to blew off wisdom and turned out just fine!

As a novice poetry reader, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘿𝙤𝙤𝙧 has sent plenty of chills up my spine at random moments, some editing issue, I supposed. I'm not quite sure. I had quite an enjoyable read most of it, about daily life's sludge and mulch undressing before eyes. The book ends with the main title, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘿𝙤𝙤𝙧 where readers were given a peek, a look, through 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘿𝙤𝙤𝙧 that opens wide for the path to death…then closed?

Calming and chaotic, sweet and sarcastic, and hold one's feelings on the fingertip. Certainly fit for a relaxing read in one sitting, accompanied by frowns in between and concluded with a grin on the face.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today is Margaret Atwood’s 83rd birthday, so what better time to show her some love? Like the Beatles, she’s worked in so many different genres and styles that I don’t see how anyone could say they don’t like her – you just haven’t explored her oeuvre deeply enough. Although she’s best known for her fiction, she started off as a poet, with a whole five collections published in the 1960s before her first novel appeared. I’d previously read her Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965–1995 and Dearly, my top poetry read of 2020.

The Door was at that point her first poetry release in 12 years and features a number of the same themes that permeate her novels and nonfiction: memory, writing, ageing, travel and politics. I particularly like the early poems where she reinhabits memories of childhood and early adulthood, often through objects. Such artifacts are “pocketed as pure mementoes / of some once indelible day,” she writes in “Year of the Hen.”

These are followed by a trilogy about the death of the family’s pet cat, Blackie. “We get too sentimental / over dead animals. / We turn maudlin,” she acknowledges in “Mourning for Cats,” yet “Blackie in Antarctica” injects some humour as she remembers how her sister kept the cat’s corpse in the freezer until she could come home to bury it. Also on the lighter side is a long “where are they now?” update for the Owl and the Pussycat.

There are also meta reflections on poetry, slightly menacing observations on the weather (an implacable, fate-like force) and the seasons (autumn = hunting), virtual visits to the Arctic, mild complaints about the elderly not being taken seriously, and thoughts on duty.

Four in a row muse about war – the Vietnam War in particular, I think? “The Last Rational Man” is a sinister standout, depicting a figure who is doomed under Caligula’s reign. Whoever she may have had in mind when she wrote this, it’s just as relevant 15 years later.

In the final, title poem, which appears to be modelled on the Seven Ages of Man, a door is a metaphor for life’s transitions and, ultimately, for death.

The door swings open:
O god of hinges,
god of long voyages,
you have kept faith.
It’s dark in there.
You confide yourself to the darkness.
You step in.
The door swings closed.

Apart from a few end rhymes, Atwood relies more on theme than on sonic technique or form. That, I think, makes her poetry accessible to those who are new to or suspicious of verse. Happy birthday, M.A., and thank you for your literary wisdom and innovation!

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Pastels Passions · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaret Atwood what can't you do. this was good collection of poetry. some are better than others, but overall the collection was wonderful

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently finished The Edible Woman, and it was interesting to read Margaret Atwood at the other end - poems instead of novel, in this millennium instead of the 1960s.

Atwood is always so sharp, in the way where I think I know where she's headed and she grabs me, twists me around, and makes me hurt or laugh. God, I love having that kind of reaction to a poem. It is rare. These are perfectly measured in that way.

The surprise in this volume was the CD in back, with poems read by Atwood herself. I was thrown off that the poems I liked the most, other than Secrecy, weren't those that were chosen. I tried to find a theme, a reason, and could think myself to death about it.

I like little bits of some of the longer poems, like this bit from Another Visit to the Oracle:
"What I do: I see
in darkness. I see
darkness. I see you."

See, even in the really simple, quiet moments, Atwood shines.

Other favorites include Heart, Your Children Cut Their Hands, and The Door. Atwood isn't afraid of death, of aging, of war and destruction.

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, Margaret Atwood, I do love thee.

With that said, I am ashamed to say that I have not read any of her poetry previously. I am not much of a poetry reader; or, more specifically, I'm a serious poetry snob and find myself turning my nose up at anything that leaves me feeling anything remotely similar to indifference, which is my opinion on a lot of modern poetry. So the poets I do like are ones I hold near and dear because they made me feel something in a handful of poems, and even the ones that left me feeling a little less than that are still memorable to me in some way.

Comparing these poems only to the short stories, novels, essays and reviews that I have read of Atwood's, I can say that these poems even feel to have a sage-like wisdom to them. It is evident she has grown as a person and a writer, and while I have not always agreed with her decisions as a writer (sigh, The Penelopiad...), I have never stopped respecting her. Her poems here are wise and laden with memory and, at times, subtle self-deprication. I enjoy how she balances the personal with the political, and some poems (like "Butterfly") make me think of several of her earlier novels - I love her constant cross-overs.

Included is a CD of her reading her own poems. Her voice, like her words, is older and even a little more world-weary than the last interview I saw of hers (granted it has been a while). She has a monotonous tone which makes active listening difficult at times, but I listened to her voice specifically on some of my favorite poems so I could get an even better idea of the importance of them through her voice. And that, if nothing else, was worth it.

Favorites: "Resurrecting the dolls' house", "Butterfly", "Your children cut their hands...", "Sor Juana works in the garden", "Owl and Pussycat, some years later", "The last rational man", "Saint Joan of Arc on a postcard", and "You heard the man you love".

[kaelan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm an aesthete, a philosophaster and a romantic, which probably explains why I didn't enjoy this collection all that much. See, I find bliss in melody and rhythm; in complexity and ambiguity; and in the relation—essential to so much poetry—between form and content. Atwood's verse, however, is straight-forward and unadorned, with an ostensible didactic quality. In short, her poetry reads a lot like her non-fiction (indeed, Atwood had previously explored many of the themes and subjects of this book in essay-format). Unfortunately, I don't particularly like her non-fiction.

These aren't objective criticisms. On the contrary, the very accessibility of The Door, with which I have taken such an issue, will likely recommend it to a good number of readers. And I should not neglect to mention the few poems that I was honestly impressed by. "The Line: Five Variations" and (esp.) "The Door" are both powerful pieces that nonetheless seem to elude complete comprehension on the part of the reader, which is exactly what I want from poetry. And "The Last Rational Man" brings to life—vividly—a notorious episode from the reign of Caligula.

Yet even a fan of Atwood will—or should—admit that most of this collection doesn't shine so bright. I've tried to explain (with extreme brevity) why this might be, but perhaps my qualms are best expressed in the following passage, which I borrow from James Schuyler's "The Morning of the Poem":

So many lousy poets
So few good ones
What's the problem?
No innate love of
Words, no sense of
How the thing said
Is in the words, how
The words are themselves
The thing said: love,
Mistake, promise, auto
Crack-up, color, petal,
The color in the petal
Is merely light
And that's refraction:
A word, that's the poem.

If only The Door was this good.

[Maddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Poets are like alchemists
They can transform bleeding
words into exquisite literature-
an elixir for the hopeful and
venom for the wretched."

Never truer words were spoken! Atwood never fails to deliver with exquisite poetry and this little gem is no exception. My favourites were, Owl and the Pussycat Some Years Later, Saint Joan of Arch on a Postcard and The Valley of the Heretics. Looking forward to the next one.

[Ashley Marilynne Wong · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Door by Margaret Atwood is a richly multilayered, profoundly philosophical and therefore deeply thought-provoking, and thematically diverse poetry collection that showcases the author’s exceptional intelligence and uncanny ability to see the world from vastly different and complex lenses. I enjoyed this engrossing and stimulating collection immensely. My favourite poem from the collection? Those who know me should be able to guess with ease – ‘The Hurt Child’, naturally ;)

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Someone else might enjoy it.

[Simon Pressinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaret Atwood is such an engaging poet and I really enjoyed this collection. It comes in five parts, all fairly distinct in feel and character. They’re eclectic and quirky, full of childhood memories (like the melancholy memorial poems to her dead cat when she was a girl), kaleidoscopic, abstract impressions, and occasional savage takedowns (like the men she observes who hunt in the woods, non professional day trippers with guns and a base desire for indiscriminate killing). I was swept away by the very last poem, the titular poem ‘The Door’. The door itself memorably ‘swings open’ and ‘swings closed’ throughout, a kind of time portal that allows the poet to glimpse her life as a series of clipped memories and moments. I can see why it’s the last one; it caps off the collection beautifully, touching on all the major themes Atwood explores throughout: life and death, the future, memory and change, sorrow and confusion and fear of the unknown.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy read, though there are so many poems about poets and poetry, I wonder if readers who aren’t also writers will be bored. I found the regularity of them tedious. The theme of the poet poems can be summed up by these last 3 lines of “Boat Song”:

“Whatever it is, that’s us with the violins
as the lights fade and the great ship slides down
and the water closes in.”

That is, We poets are useless, nobody listens to us, but poetry is all we can do.

Most of the poems in this collection have a nugget or two of linguistic brilliance or startling emotion, but I didn’t find them earth-shattering. There are a handful, mostly in the second half, that are quite strong: Bear Lament, The Nature of the Gothic, The Line: five variations, Another Visit to the Oracle, The Door. But the high points make the rest of the collection look rather flat.

[Jacabaeus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent poetry that blends hope and dispair, rage and gentleness, unfeeling and caring, darkness and reality in a way only Atwood seems able. Some of the topics covered are hard to stomach, but they should be. If they're not, read them again and then speak with the women in your life and have a real deep think.

[Eliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to crawl into most of these poems and never leave, even as they threw me out with a punch to my soul.

I’ve historically had trouble with Atwood’s poetry but these! These tore me open and healed me all at once.

[Marianne Barron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Variabel, men totalt sett god. Ikke like enkel å få has på denne diktsamlingens om noen av de andre. Det kan jo være meg...

[Rachel Stienberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

3/5 stars but an extra star for the last poem made up of opening lines from poems within the book.

[Adia · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
RTC

[Julie Grace Immink · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cat in the kitchen freezer in red silk, the best line of this series.

[Georgeanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not typically a poetry-reviewer, but I did enjoy the poems within this book greatly. But just keep in mind then that my rating is solely on enjoyment, and not of a critical nature.

Some of the lines in this book seemed eerily prophetic, which was very engaging.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally I had this down as 3 stars, but then I flipped through it again just to make sure, and thought it deserved 4. Atwood writes with an educated simplicity that make most of her poems readable and enjoyable, but not trivial.

I found a few poems annoying, (dead cats) but I would classify the book as a whole as a worthwhile read.

[Tess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m thinking of dropping this book in the bathtub so I won’t have to return it to the library.

[Cherie Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like your poetry with a-lot of spice and an occasional bite, Margaret Atwood is for you. She will make you think long after you turn the last page.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the majority a very morbid set of poems ...

White Cotton T-Shirt

White cotton T-shirt: an innocent garnment then.
It made its way to us from the war, but we didn't know that.
For us it was the vestment of summer,
whiter than white, shining with whiteness
because it had been washed in blood, but we didn't know that,
and on the cropped sleeve, rolled up tightly
into a cuff, we tucked the cigarettes,
also white within their packet, also innocent,
as were white panties, white convertibles,
white-blonde brush-cuts,
and the white, white teeth of the lilting smiles
of the young men.

Ignorance makes all things clean.
Our knowledge weighs us down.
We want it gone

so we can put on our white T-shirts
and drive once more through the early dawn
streets with the names we never could
pronounce, but it didn't matter,
over the broken glass and bricks, passing
the wary impoverished faces,
the grins filled with blackening teeth,
the starving dogs and stick children
and the slackened bundles of clothing
that once held men,
enjoying the rush of morning air
on our clean, tanned skins,
and the white, white flowers we hold out in our fists,
believing - still - that they are flowers of peace.

[Александър · Rating 4 out of 5]

Прекрасна Атууд, както винаги ❤️

-----

My mother dwindles and dwindles
and lives and lives.
If she were a boat, you’d say
the moon shines through her ribs
and noone’s steering,
yet she can’t be said to be drifting;
somebody’s in there.
Her blind eyes light her way.

-----

We’re at
the mercy of any stray
rabid mongrel or thrown stone or cancerous
ray, or our own
bodies: we were born with mortality’s
hook in us, and year by year it drags us
where we’re going: down.

-----

and the soft, unbearable sadness
filtering down from distant stars?

-----

Here’s a gnawed bone,
it’s my own,
I took it out of my arm.
Here’s my heart, in a little pile of vomit.

[shelby · Rating 4 out of 5]

”when you stand on bare earth in your bare feet
and the lightning whips through you, two ways
at once, they say you are grounded,
and that’s what poetry is: a hot wire.
you might as well stick a fork
in a wall socket.”

my first go at margaret atwood’s poetry and i really enjoyed it. looking forward to diving into more of her collections.

[Hayley Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am running immediately to read the rest of Margaret Atwood’s poetry anthologies in chronological order (for personal preference not necessary reasons). I feel attacked but in a very positive way. Ugh, her mind. Plus, I got the added bonus of Matt Berry singing “There’s somebody at the door! There’s somebody at the door!” In my head every time I even looked at the book.

[Michelle Smart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated these works. The tone overall was of hopelessness, but although that is not typically me, I did feel a connection with several of these poems. I rarely felt a desire to consider a poem with depth, but I did feel a pull to read "just one more" before putting the book down.

[Bradford D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Atwood's poetry is unafraid to delve deeply into our most secret feelings and thoughts. I was moved by “The Last Rational Man” and “White T-Shirt” as well as “The Hurt Child”, “The nature of Gothic” and “Dutiful”.

[Anne Farrer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid, readable collection of insightful, intense work. Considering what's currently happening in Gaza, I found the poems War Photo, and Nobody Cares Who Wins particularly poignant. And really loved You Heard The Man You Love.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's always fun to read Atwood. While some of the poems were better than others, i thought the titular final poem was fantastic.