I Vote for Margaret Atwood
Margaret AtwoodFlying Inside Your Own Body
Your lungs fill & spread themselves,
wings of pink blood, and your bones
empty themselves and become hollow.
When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon
and your heart is light too & huge,
beating with pure joy, pure helium.
The sun’s white winds blow through you,
there’s nothing above you,
you see the earth now as an oval jewel,
radiant & seablue with love.
It’s only in dreams you can do this.
Waking, your heart is a shaken fist,
a fine dust clogs the air you breathe in;
the sun’s a hot copper weight pressing straight
down on the think pink rind of your skull.
It’s always the moment just before gunshot.
You try & try to rise but you cannot.
Be an INFORMED voter!
Website: http://www.owtoad.com/
http://www.poemhunter.com/margaret-atwood/poems/page-1/
(check out "Is/Not")
If you would like to vote for Margaret Atwood, post a comment here! (Follow my example)
posted by Mrzhire at
1:28 PM
44 Comments:
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because I love her novel "A Handmaid's Tale" and when you read this poem out loud, you really feel as if you are flying. Seriously, try it. I think she is unique.
SOAPSTONE
Speaker - Margaret...interesting that she uses 2nd person though
Occasion - she just woke up from one of those crazy dreams where she was falling and then started flying at the last minute
Audience - whoever she's laying in bed next to...or the next morning at work telling a co-worker.
Purpose - stream of consciousness...to create imagery and a rhythm, quickness as if you were really flying as you read it
Subject - reality vs. subconscious - what happens on the brink of consciousness...the very edge of when you are awake and asleep - OR - the feeling you get when butterflies are in your stomach for whatever reason.
Tone - light, airy, quick, pure, carefree...I just don't know about the gunshot at the end - what do YOU think?
Margaret Atwood gets my vote because I like how she actually addresses an audience in most of her poems (whether it's "you" or "we"). It just seems like something poetry should do because then its not all about the poet's feelings or all internal, it's likely about something more universal and relatable.
How can i NOT vote for someone who has a poem titled Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing?
She has my vote because she's in the now, and uses a free-er style than the other poets. She's powerful and current, I love it.
I vote for Margaret Atwood because I am not very partial to nature poetry and I have heard a lot of Emily Dickenson so I thought Atwood would be a nice change/exposure to someone new!
I'm picking Margaret Atwood because I liked her poem titled, In the Secular Night. Her words evoked a deep emotion of loneliness but more importantly silence. It was like being underwater and holding your breath. You can see the sand, the people, or the marine life, but all is silent. It is a secret world that many people don't take time to appreciate...or at least that is how I felt about her poem.
i'm voting for Margaret Atwood.
Sara is too.
-phil
I vote for Margaret Atwood because he tone is unbelievably personal and she makes me feel as if my interpretation matters. Like Alex said, the poems are about her, but she also addresses the audience. Her purpose may not be known, but she causes the reader to look within themselves, without being suicidal. She can see both words and every poem of hers that I've read I've enjoyed. She's simply very talented.
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because I like the imagery she uses in her poems, especially in Flying Inside Your Own Body and Postcards. You can really feel how she feels. She seems like an interesting poet and I would like to read more of her works.
I'm voting for Atwood because she's amazing! She talks about sex! its cool! as an IB student who's had to deal too much with "maturity" and "being on time" and "being responsible"... talking about something humorously mature and naughty is so roxorzzz!!!!
Soapstone
Speaker- the dreaming Margaret... (i think thats why she is in 2nd person... she's talking to herself...)
Occasion: She just experienced a horrible round of shagging (austin powers was pg-13), and she's talking about how sex can only be good in a dream.
Audience: Herself. its an in depth analysis of why sex for her is sucking.
Purpose: To understand the night life, to make clear the point that the highness of her feelings can only happen in a dream.
Subject: Dreaming vs. the unfortunate reality. The point at which you have to realize that, no matter how good a man gets, it can always get better.
Tone: Aggressive, bitter, harsh. She loves the idea of "the big O", but its never her that gets it (except in a dream)... the gunshot happens too soon... eh? eh?
I would like to vote for Magaret Atwood because she is an internationally celebrated author and in her website, I appreciate the way she refuses to interpret her own work at the asking of her fans due to the effect of ruining the multidimensional interpretations of her poetry. Plus, i find the anagrams of her name quite entertaining.
One of our prompts for the TOK essay begins with a quote from Atwood: "context is all." I fundamentally disagree with this statement but am still intrigued by it. I am curious as to how such a theme will play out in her work.
i vote for Atwood. She speaks to me.
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because she sounds really crazy and I like that. I like how in her poems there seems to be thought... duh, but what I mean is, it is like thoughts bouncing around in her head that she is writing her poetry from and I really enjoy that.
SOAPSTONE
Speaker: Atwood like she's talking to you... creepy!
Occasion: She couldn't sleep and started thinking about her breathing and then those thoughts ended up in this poem.
Audience: I think anyone who is around her at the time to share this 'inner body' experience with her.
Purpose: To create the feeling of how you would feel if you just woke up while thinking about what your body is really doing. Instead of your body just moving unconsciously.
Subject: What one might think about if they can't fall asleep for the life of them. They might begin to think about their body and what it is going to feel like when they actually have to move ("your heart is a shaken fist").
Tone: The tone itself sounds almost unconscious itself. Light headed and long winded with a slap in the face at the end.
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because I like the imagery that she uses in her poems such as the ones in "Flying Inside Your Own Body." I also think that there are a lot of different ways to interpret the poems she writes so it would be good for the commentary.
I vote for Atwood because she seems to have a fun playful take on poetry and it will not weigh down my nights with depressing crazy talk about how bad life is for middle class women....boo hoo.
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because I read a Handmaiden's Tale and I really liked it. I've also liked all of the poems of hers that I've read so far. They seem very direct and don't try as hard to be mysterious as some poems seem to do, but they still definitely have a lot of depth and meaning to them.
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because her feminist tone is interesting and i feel like it is easier to relate to for me as i am not depressed.
I vote for Atwood because I like how in her website she openly accepts criticism and also publishes quotes from other writers...different from Orwell who considers himself the authority on everything...
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because I like her use of vivid imagery. There's no "dead" or "dying" metaphors (the kind Orwell didn't like), her choice of words is very precise and the metaphors make almost perfect comparisons. It's a unique style like an abstract painting that makes perfect sense (reminds me of Dali's melting clocks for some reason).
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because Sylvia Plath is too dark and Emily Dickinson is too boring and I already voted for Mary Oliver. She won be default. Oh and Ms. Hire, I think you should make us political buttons that say who we voted for!
SOAPSTONE
Speaker - Author (Atwood)
Occasion - Well Kareem's idea fits really well to stay on the PG side of things, I think she's in love. Sappy I know but I think that's how she feels when she's in love.
Audience - Anyone who wants to read it I think. But probably especially for her lover.
Purpose - To tell someone how crazy she feels for loving. Her lines really flow bwteen them like there is no break.
Subject - I gotta go with Ms. Hire and say the butterflies because of her crazy insane feelings fro someone else.
Tone - Flowing and happy although there are some really dark lines like "the sun's a hot copper weight pressing down on the thin pink rind of your skull".
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because I really liked the start contrast between mental and real imagery in "Flying Inside Your Own Body". I feel that this style of poetry is good for philosophical analysis and literary commentary.
I am voting for Atwood because Ms. Hire's description of her novel about nurse maids sounded really good.
Okay so Mrs. Hire I don't know why my profile thing says period 8...that's probably related to Mrs. Fleet last year. Anyway, I'll vote for Atwood solely based on the whole Kareem speech about how this could be about an orgasm...if I got to say orgasm in a commentary that'd give me a good laugh.
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because I enjoy her style so much. i enjoy the fact that she blends some aspects of humans and aspects of nature to create amazing poetry.
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood because she interests me. Her direct refusal to answer questions on what her poetry means says a lot about her and I like the idea that she doesn't tie herself down to writing a specific type of poetry, which gets old quickly.
I'm voting for Margaret Atwood, because of the small portion of poetry pieces I read of hers, they spoke to me the most compared to the rest. I loved Flying Inside Your Body and Is/Not. Those were both great and Is/Not kinda reminded me of Politics and the English Language. haha. So ya, I think that Atwood is a great poet and I would love to study more of her poetry. Horray for Atwood!
Margaret Atwood recieves my vote because of the the other peots previewed, Atwood seems to be unique and as Hugh brought up the conection to the TOK essay will be very interesting
Even though its too late, I would have voted for Margaret Atwood because I really like the feminist tone in her poems and I was intrigued by the two poems we read in class yesterday and I want to read more from her.
SOAPSTONE:
Speaker: Margaret addressing the Audience
Occasion: She was asleep and dreaming and then its one of those times when you just wake up with a "whoa"....
Audience: I feel like this is something she would write to herself, like in a diary or something. Doesn't really seem like something to tell a person, but more personal thoughts, especially the way she writes it
Purpose: To create the feeling of understanding your body and your thoughts and such
Subject: I agree with Kareems "Dreaming vs Reality." However, she might be trying to subject just pure bliss and how you feel when you enter that stage, whether it be in your dreams or reality.
Tone: Carefree, Pure, Emotion stirring, reminds me of that angelic noise thats like "*high pitched* ahhhhhhhhh" perfection. her tone changes at the end though, but it doesnt change the mood.
SOAPSTONE
Speaker – Margaret Atwood, although she is speaking on generic experiences that could apply to anyone.
Occasion – She is commenting on the contrast between the possibilities in the real world and the world of dreams.
Audience – Anyone who has had the feeling of waking up to a world drearier than their dreams.
Purpose – To create two contrasting portions of the poem using imagery of the light and feathery dream world and the cold reality of just before the gunshot in the real world.
Subject – The physical and the metaphysical (i.e. idealism that occurs even subconsciously in the mind during dreaming and the reality that is brought about by such things as come to mind when you think of a gunshot).
Tone – Optimistic and something like carefree in the first portion of the poem contrasted with helpless in the second portion of the poem.
TPCAST
Title: Flying Inside Your Own Body seems like a title associated with an psychological exploration of finding yourself.
Paraphrase:
1. you breath in and your lungs expand while your bones feel hollow.
2. breathing in causes the sensation of being balloon-like, which makes your heart beat faster and feel light.
3. The sun warms you easily and you get a birds-eye view of the earth.
4. This only happens in dreams. in reality, the heart is angry and you breath polluted air.
5. The sun weighs you down with heat on your vulnerable skin.
6. It makes you feel like your about to die and you cannot rise above the feeling.
Connotations: The use of lungs as pink wings of blood is angelic, relating to the flying sensation but also morbid along with the bone image, this suggests that something is wrong with the initial picture. The earth as a jewel has a very serene connotation and the sun's rays as white winds gives the feeling of fulfillment and the motif of the helium balloon connotes a calm, slow flight rather than a Superman's soar.
Attitude: at first kind of a happy but surreal tone with the oval jewel(curious that its oval and not a sphere) and the balloon image along with the slightly creepy body image. later, the sun image feels uncomfortable and negative.
Shifts: in the eleventh line there is a tone shift from the dreamworld with its 'pure joy' and 'wings of pink blood' to the real world with pollution and gunshots.
Title: The title now connotes the dream world because the flight does not occur in the real world but rather inside of you.
Speaker- Atwood, speaking directly to the audience
Occasion - She has just had an out-of-body experience
Audience - Anyone and everyone
Purpose - To explain the body as simply a vessel with the real you inside of it
Subject - Ontology, the problem of being. Atwood discusses the problem from the dualist approach, in which mind and body are separate. This is the body as seen by the mind.
Tone - Dreamy, optimistic
Soapstone
Speaker - Margaret Atwood
Occasion - She's in a dream like state...I believe that she wrote this while she was conscious, but not entirely awake (you know when you're awake and asleep at the same time)
Audience - I think she's talking to anyone who can relate...anyone who's had this dream...I think it's highly personal because I think she wrote this so that she would remember the dream later and then has left it open for interpretation for everyone else.
Purpose - I think she is trying to understand and remember her dreams. I think she wantst to know why she dreampt this and allows for others to examine similar dreams through hers.
Subject - I think she is talking about how you are awake and asleep at the same time and how this state may lead to complete understanding and unbiased thought and that we should try and learn from these thoughts.
Tone - I think her tone is very light because she was in a completely free state when she felt this way and that the shift in tone caused by the gunshot shows the fact that only this can happen in dreams because reality is flawed by the contrast in people's opinions.
I vote for Atwood because I just like her style the most. i like how she is more despcriptive and "wordy". You don't have to constantly dig to find something to talk about. i think she will be the easiest for me (knock on wood) so she gets my vote - of course
SOAPSTONE
Speaker: Margeret after a daydream
Occasion: I think she was just standing on a cliff or a high mountain-standing at the very edge where you can't really see what you're standing on excepte the breathtaking valley hundreds of feet bellow you.
Audience: Whoever she really wants to tell, maybe the next person she comes to on the trail she is hiking, or her hiking buddy.
Purpose: To describe this unique, rare feeling
Subject:The time (like during meditation) when you can almost fly outside of your body by swimming within it, where you forget about everything and just surrender.
Tone: Smooth and light, however the tone seems to change, like when she wakes up to reality. It changes to dark and odd almost. Like that time you escape is so much better than real life (I don't know!).
TPCAST
T- Flying Inside Your Own Body, might allude the connection between yourself in a mental level and physical level
P- The poem first talks about the lightness in your body as different functions take place, then it switches to the sadistic and almost dangerous things that can happen to the body.
C- Atwood uses lots and lots of color and imagery to convey both the feelings of lightness in the body as well as the danger. For example, she uses the word pink in both a good and light connoatation (with the words blood and lungs) and with a dark connotation (pink rind of the skull).
A- The attitude at first is very dreamy and airy, but then shifts to very dark and almost disturbing
S- The shift takes place in the tone of the poem. It starts as very dream- like and light, and then it shifts to have a dangerous and scary tone to it
T-Flying Inside Your Own Body- The title shows the connection between the body and the events outside of the body, as they are both dangerous.
S- I think it could be Margaret Atwood, but I kind of see this as being spoken by someone who is about to die
O- It could be interpreted in a lot of different ways, but I think it might be a person who is about to die. A lot of people talk about your life flashing before your eyes in that moment, and to me this is sort of the same type of experience. The person is becoming acutely aware of their own body in the moment before their death, and the shock is creating that dream-like state, until the moment of death actually comes and everything is put back into perspective.
A- It sounds kind of personal, like something she has written for herself
P- To present another way of thinking about that moment before death - it's portrayed in a positive light in this poem, which is kind of ironic, as death is usually considered to be unpleasant
S- Life versus death and the implications that come with the transition
Tone- It's very joyful yet relaxed, until the end, when there is a definite shift. It becomes morose and unhopeful and ends on a very depressing note.
I love how Atwood, like Plath, begins her poems in one way, and then shifts into her true meaning. She also utilizes a variety of thought-provoking situations within her poetry to outline various themes and ideas.
SOAPSTONE
Speaker - narrator that speaks in 2nd person
Occasion - she had one of those dreams that seem really awesome until you wake up and realize it's not real
Audience - anyone that dreams
Purpose - to show how the mind is separate from the body
Subject - reality vs ideal life or life in your body vs life in your mind
Tone - carefree, flowing, like floating down to the earth instead of falling and then hitting the ground at the gunshot
Title: Flying Inside your own Body
It seems to relate to how you feel when you are on a natural high, when things are going great... kind of?
Paraphrase: Breathing, you float in your own body above the earth in dreams until suddenly you return to your body and reality closes in. You try to return to the feeling, but can't once you are real again.
Connotations:lungs as "wings of pink blood" connotates a euphoric feeling, of being born aloft not only by your body, but of your body working beautifully. "it is only in dreams ou can do this" connotates that this is the only place that this can occur, that your body doesn't usually do this.
"It's always the moment before the gunshot" gunshot connotates a harsh, sudden change, a feeling of loss/death.
Attitude:The attitude is at first euphoric and awed, but then shifts back to the harshness of reality
Shifts: Atwood shifts from the dreamy tone of the beginning of the poem to a harsh tone at the end of the poem.
Title:Flying inside your own body
Still seems like it relates to how you feel in dreams, but now what it feels like to fall as well.
Speaker: Atwood upon waking up from a dream
Occasion: She seems to be remembering this beautiful dream she just woke up from and is contrasting it against the harsher reality she wakes up to.
Audience: Whoever can also relate to the feelings the dreams evoke in her
Purpose: I think she is sort of reliving/recreating this dream that had a lasting impact on her. Or the poem also seems like it could be one of those "life flashes before your eyes" moments, especially since she talks about that impending gunshot at the end.
Subject: Beauty of dreams vs. Harshness of reality. or maybe Brevity of life compared to (In)finiteness of death?
Tone: At first, peaceful and airy (lots of wind imagery), but it suddenly switches towards the end and the images become much harsher, sudden.
i read Margaret atwood's poem In the Secular Night and loved it! i really love how it feels like she's talking to you. its not like she's on some pedastal spouting words of wisdon but rather just talking to a friend. Also i love her poem the secular night. a lot. i like the part about glenn miller an the ice cream soda. you should read it and see what im talking about!
Speaker: Margaret Atwood
Occasion: It makes me think of when i fall asleep in the car in the sunliight... your just sitting there all warm and content and then your sleeping and dreaming... and then suddenly you hit a bump or something and your awake again.
Audience: the audience is someone she knows well a friend or confidante of fome kind
Purpose: to convey the experience of this dream event that she had.
Tone: butterflyfull. i know thats not a word sorry but if it were it would mean airy and delicate and the nervous excitent feeling you get i your stomach all mixed up.
TPCAST
Title - It reminds me of the Magic school bus. When they like get small and dive into the human body adn learn about it.
Paraphrase - At first it is talking about breathing, and then being happy and then it says that you can only be happy in dreams though. The people becomes sad or mad. Then it kinda talks about suffocation. And a gunshot.
Connotations - In the beginning of the poem there are lots of words with good connotations. Like wings, breathe, lift, heart, lite, joy, jewel. Then at the end there are words like fist, clogs, weight, skull, gunshot.
Attitude - There is a good attitude and then a bad one.
Shifts - There is a clear shift, a little bit after the middle of the poem
Title - No magic school bus....
(Belated)
I would have voted for Margaret Atwood because I absolutely adore the diction that she uses, especially her fascination with the word pink and dark imagery. She’s a somewhat contradicting figure which intrigues me.
SOAPSTONE
Speaker: Margaret, although she uses 2nd Person
Occasion: She’s comparing her dream-like/ideal reality/world to the harsher real world.
Audience: Atwood is speaking to herself, a sort of reflection on herself to herself.
Purpose: To emphasize the contradictions of reality using herself as an example through imagery and diction
Subject: Idealism vs. Realism and how they cannot coincide with each other without interrupting the other
Tone: Reflective, Ambivalent
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