DEARLY New Poems

Margaret Atwood is best known as a novelist, of course, but she is also quite a fine poet, and her reading of her poems is also quite fine. The poems focus largely on nature and the nature of being a woman in the modern world, but these potentially fraught subjects do not tempt Atwood, in writing or reading, into stridency. Her performance throughout the collection is low-key, although there is no mistaking her intentions and her passions. Just as good poetry rewards multiple readings (and this is good poetry), good readings of poetry deserve, and reward, multiple listenings. This is that kind of poetry, and that kind of reading. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2020]