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Poetry
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Aug 8 - Cell - Margaret Atwood
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For me, it opens like a flower. Does it seem that way to you?

I love the first two lines. Everything else builds from that.
And, in a bit of serendipity, we are also reading a short story by Atwood on the story conference.

... Look in the mirror.
Of her various media, I return to her poems frequently, her stories too, but less eagerly. The novels of hers that I've read or heard about seem like longish extensions of her crystallized poetic insights.


But then she turns the tables on us, who are sentient.
To eat more. To replicate itself. To keep on
doing those things forever. Such desires
are not unknown. Look in the mirror.
Am I the only one who sees this last stanza as not exactly flattering?


Nobody, of course. But sometimes it does us good.



Not flattering at all! We are presented as mindlessly moving through life, consuming whatever we encounter, spreading everywhere without a thought about the result. Pretty accurate, but not flattering!

Ruth - I guess that just goes to show the power of poetry and of Atwood in particular. I was thinking of friends and relatives when I read it and now that I've re-read it after your comment I can see how the poem might offer an alternate view of something I have always imagined to be like an enemy/invader.


Such desires
are not unknown to us.
But then, I don't think of Atwood as a subtle poet.


Yoby wrote: "... don't try to convince other people, who are grateful for these warnings.... Freedom of speech is freedom of speech..."
Is this a case of, Physician, heal thyself ... ? Yoby, I wasn't trying to convince anyone of anything. I was giving my reaction to the poem, and explaining why. Isn't that what this forum is all about?





I am curious about this phrase: More life, and more abundantly. I know Atwood is not religious, but is she aware of Jesus's saying, "I have come that [people:] may have life, and have it more abundantly."? Of course, the abundance to which Jesus refers is a richer inner life, primarily, and the cancer cell is seeking the material enrichment needed to sustain a physical existence.

Scout,
I, too, agree that the speaker is a cancer patient, trying to make sense of what is going on in her body. And Mary Ellen, thank you for pointing at the reference to Jesus's words. There are many churches that have the words "Abundant Life" in their name.
Regarded as one of Canada’s finest living writers, Margaret Atwood is a poet, novelist, story writer, essayist, and environmental activist. Her books have received critical acclaim in the United States, Europe, and her native Canada, and she has received numerous literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Governor General’s Award, twice. Atwood’s critical popularity is matched by her popularity with readers; her books are regularly bestsellers.
Cell
by Margaret Atwood
Now look objectively. You have to
admit the cancer cell is beautiful.
If it were a flower, you'd say, How pretty,
with its mauve centre and pink petals
or if a cover for a pulpy thirties
sci-fi magazine, How striking;
as an alien, a success,
all purple eye and jelly tentacles
and spines, or are they gills,
creeping around on granular Martian
dirt red as the inside of the body,
while its tender walls
expand and burst, its spores
scatter elsewhere, take root, like money,
drifting like a fiction or
miasma in and out of people's
brains, digging themselves
industriously in. The lab technician
says, It has forgotten
how to die. But why remember? All it wants is more
amnesia. More life, and more abundantly. To take
more. To eat more. To replicate itself. To keep on
doing those things forever. Such desires
are not unknown. Look in the mirror.