This is the fourth book of poems by a brilliant young Canadian poet, author of the celebrated Journals of Susanna Moodie, who now has a large following in both Canada and the United States. Margaret Atwood's poetry evokes a disturbing landscape of metamorphosis, of quick shifts in perspective, of stretching and vanishing time. This new collection both polarizes and attempts to reconcile violence and peace, the personal and the political, the irrevocable past and the inescapable present. It is a poetry that reflects an acute perception of the ambiguities of the self and its environment.

Contents:

• Eden Is a Zoo
• Game after Supper
• Dream: Bluejay or Archeopteryx
• Girl and Horse, 1928
• Transmission
• A Dialogue
• The Small Cabin
• Two Gardens
• The Shrunken Forest
• Delayed Message
• Midwinter, Presolstice
• Frame
• We Don't Like Reminders
• Interview with a Tourist
• Procedures for Underground
• The Creatures of the Zodiac
• Weed Seeds Near a Beaver Pond
• The End of the World: Weekend, Near Toronto
• 6 a.m., Boston, Summer Sublet
• For Uncle M.
• Hypotheses: City
• Stories in Kinsman's Park
• Dreams of the Animals
• Cyclops
• Three Desk Objects
• Spell for the Director of Protocol
• Projected Slide of an Unknown Soldier
• Comic Books vs. History
• Return Trips West
• 84th Street, Edmonton
• Highest Altitude
• A Morning
• A Soul, Geologically
• Habitation
• Chrysanthemums
• Two Versions of Sweaters
• Younger Sister, Going Swimming
• Fishing for Eel Totems
• Buffalo in Compound: Alberta
• For Archeologists
• Carrying Food Home in Winter
• Fragments: Beach
• Dancing Practice