Jane Munro recommends reading The Journals of Susanna Moodie by Margaret Atwood
CBC Books | | Posted: August 11, 2020 3:24 PM | Last Updated: August 11, 2020
CBC Books reached out to Canadian writers for the books they recommend during uncertain times.
Jane Munro is a poet whose latest book is Glass Float. In the book, the Vancouver-based writer looks to how a dedication to yoga can help deepen awareness. Munro won the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2015 for the collection Blue Sonoma.
Munro recommends reading the poetry collection The Journals of Susanna Moodie by Margaret Atwood.
"Did Canada have its own literature? When, in 1969 — as a young mother with a BA and a baby — I returned to Canada after a year in Turkey, I didn't know.
"The only books in English I found in Ankara were Penguin Classics. At university, I'd studied American poetry and British poetry, but what about Canadian poetry?
"My answer came that fall when, as a grad student at Simon Fraser University, I went to a Canadian poetry festival in Edmonton. Yes! We had wonderful poets. My favourite readings were by Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje. And then, the icing on my cake: Sandra Djwa, my professor, invited Margaret Atwood to come to our hotel room. She did. That evening the three of us sat on beds, on the floor, and talked. And talked.
"For a poet whose work was stringent and simple, whose words shone like pebbles turned and polished by the sea, Atwood's poems had a remarkable ability to be evocative. Those pebbles became birds and flew up in sudden patterns.
"My copy of The Journals of Susanna Moodie, which I bought as soon as it came out in 1970, cost $1.95. Even the collages and cover design are by Margaret Atwood. Many of the poems spoke to me. They still do.
"Margaret Atwood is now better known for her novels, but she was my first, major, Canadian poet. What's more, she was a woman: an amazingly intelligent, imaginative, ardent, articulate, intuitive woman.