“Like many modern poets, I tend to conceal rhymes by placing them in the middle of lines, and to avoid immediate alliteration and assonance in favor of echoes placed later in the poems.”

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Meaning

This reads as a small statement of craft, not a grand theory. Atwood is pointing to the way sound can work more quietly in poetry, with pattern and echo delayed so they are felt rather than announced. It lands for anyone reading a poem that seems plain at first, then reveals its music on a second pass.

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About Margaret Atwood

Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and inventor

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published fiction, poetry, nonfiction, children’s books, and graphic novels, and she is best known for her 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Her work spans 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children’s books, and two graphic novels, along with small-press editions of poetry and fiction. She has received major honors including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Order of Canada, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for literature, and lifetime achievement awards from the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA. Several of her works have been adapted for film and television.

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Books by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale

1986

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alias Grace

1997

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The Year of the Flood

2010

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The Blind Assassin

2011

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The Penelopiad

2006

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