SparklingMoonshine

Linguistic style and key elements in Margaret Atwood's "Two-Headed Poems"

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 04:30:27 +0000

Abstract

This article summarizes the landmark elements and offers a broadly encompassing critical review of “Two-Headed Poems”, through a detailed analysis of the most touching and poignant Atwood’s verses editorially spanned by the author between 1976 and 1986[1], other than highlighting the main traits in common with other influential artists on the same issues she focused in this poem and she dealt with, not only pointing out to lexical concerns but also by altogether rounding up the considerations about the alternation and identification of the main historical and political facts, impressively resounding in a nationalistic vein, involving both Canada and its contentious relations with its neighbour United States. All this is wittily mixed up to the original use of classical and indigenous mythology, re-elaborating the tragic culture that seizes the eternal suffering present in the world, not only in the creative moment but also in the prism of her life, straightly pointing at the challenge of the “impossible communication”, blending her geniality with her own pragmatism and understanding reality by the magic of imagination, her interest on personal and sexual sentiments, stressing out the particular role of the poet, and poetry in general, in contemporary society, not neglecting her intimate meditations about aging, the unavoidable destiny of human mortality and the precariousness of mankind’s life, looming as a subtle suspended thread over the ditch, without any sorts of circus net to perceive what you feel if the heart collapses, exploring the interior and exterior meaning of the world demeanour as half-winged angel people[2].

The main reasons why I have chosen the study of the lexicography of the multi-awarded Canadian icon Margaret Atwood, throughout her conspicuous and prolific literary production, are that she’s always caught her attention and curiosity, page after page, not only of focal contemporary social and political issues, such as feminism, environmentalism and abuses of political powers in undemocratic societies that she frown upon, she deeply investigates and brilliantly examines and exposes in her write-makings, but also of the emotions she sounds out in her poetries by the use of an original and highfalutin language in an always refined and sophisticated lexicon.

The flow of her speeches is dynamic and eclectic, marked by inventiveness and creativity, expressed with lexical choices by which Atwood tries to make courtly and impactful futuristic images, even, often, recurring to borrowings and calques from other languages, such as French and Italian, other than being popular because of her puns.

She’s a symbol of an untamed spirit and her lexical choices still ignite souls in an immortal, unapologetic and energetic imprint that characterizes her personal artistic vein and that redefines and revolutionizes the Canadian writing standards.

She doesn’t restrain herself from describing stories, putting them in ground-breaking verses making them live, breathe and resonate, flaring readers’ sensations and pushing them to reflection (her finals are always open-ended, leaving space to imagination and different interpretations).

She’s elevated her books into the dignity of cinematographic and television grandeur (i.e., “The Handmaid’s Tale” television show and film, “Alias Grace” miniseries, “Surfacing” film, “The Atwood stories” television series, “Payback” documentary), proving to be epic, emotional and timeless. Every of her creations, in fact, expressed by an uncompromising authenticity, it’s a storm that leaves fans forever changed. With her talent and charisma, she’s never bent to trends or she searches for validation or compromises to her opinion: Margaret Atwood is a symbol of rebellion, resilience and transformative power unleashed through her creative writing. She gives voice to misfits, outsiders, dreamers and fighters, turning pain into poetry, visionary books and critical denunciation, keeping on inspiring and astonishingly getting stuck generations of passionate followers.

As Atwood observed:

Poetry is the heart of the language, the activity through which language is renewed and kept alive. I believe that fiction writing is the guardian of the moral and ethical sense of the community. Especially now that organized religion is scattered and in disarray, and politicians have, Lord knows, lost their credibility, fiction is one of the few forms left through which we may examine our society not in its particular but in its typical aspects; through which we can see ourselves and the ways in which we behave towards each other, through which we can see others and judge ourselves.[3]

Margaret Atwood’s popularity today comes from the fact that her thirty-five books of poetry explore some trendy minority psychology that informs her identity as a woman and her national identity, as she is a contemporary Canadian aware of belonging to a minority culture of the North American continent, recreating her pioneer ancestors’ encounter with the wilderness and with native people. Her poetic writing, in fact, is that of a psychic individual at sea in a materialist society. Her form of some kind of hysteria assumes feminine features and it lends certain affinities with that of “A room of one’s own” and “Mrs Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf.

Among the experiences of being an individual, a woman and a Canadian, Atwood feels a deeper connection between minority membership and her poetry, as a mathematical formula, involving images, motifs, subjects and dramatic situations concerning the self-inhabitation of spaces, forms, tropes and metamorphoses.

Her aesthetic and at the same time not conventional and impeaching writing style, by which she attempts to wander, saying words that would upset the reader, with her mental gymnastics between myth and reality, blows up the silent side of the inner humankind's beauty (“Tell ourselves the silence…it keeps and narrates/the voices of the sun, the sounds of the heart,/ the muscles of the hearth./ It’s sonority….emotional communication”[4]), not neglecting today's social and political burning topics. When the clock ticking rushes up, she freezes time and transcends the space to make room for meditation in the safe place of a Morrisonian Universal Mind[5] (whose meaning will be explored later on in the essay), “the freedom man…setting people free/ […] ” just looking for a home/ in every place I see”, in the quietness of a sparkling moonshine glaring our thoughts[6].

Role reversal and new beginnings are recurrent elements in Atwood's poetry narration, often introducing two voices, one male, one female, centred on the role of women in society, seeking their stance in the world, and the individuals surrounding and affecting them. She’s, in fact, an apolitical writer and a fearless witness of the world around her.

Being, loving, and leaving are the keywords that dominate and rage in all her poems. Atwood is, in fact, essentially an ‘itinerary spirit’: born in Ottawa, grown up in Toronto and in a continuous come-and-go from Quebec because of the entomologist’s profession of her father, she studied and taught at Harvard University and the fate of her life, studded with an incessant and clamorous success that has confirmed her and brought her to the fore as a giant of world’s literature, pushed her to undertake multiple travels to a lot of cities in Canada, US and Europe to hold international conferences and promotional presentations of her artistic masterpieces.

This vicissitude has allowed her to keep on observing, with always enlightened curiosity and attention, what is around her, putting in evidence the most suggestive locations that inspired her and the features of the imaginary characters that crowd her books, by her personal way to fine-tune her works, that she has for longtime described and made known by several interviews, her teaching and video courses of creative writing, other than by her last, recent book, Book of Lives- A memoir of sorts[7], that has pushed her, as testified, to jot down in, sometimes torn scraps of paper everywhere to create her novels and poetry, in the throes of her passionate and fervent passion, coming from her sharp prowess of observation.

Atwood focuses on the concept of writing itself, declaring that “any author is aware of who will read out her novels, today, tomorrow or in a hundred years. One of the characteristic of this art form is that there's always a temporal distance between the writer and his readership. It cannot be otherwise. Readers are not with the author when he writes and the author is not with the reader when he reads. Writing is a way to have a voice that travels throughout the time”.[8]

As Atwood discovered her voice as a Canadian writer of poetry, fiction, and literary criticism, she helped the country to find its own life as a literary landscape. “Everything was interesting”, she reflects, “but the important thing was discovering the fact of our own existence as Canadians”.[9]

Her literary creations present a profound dyscrasia between the hustle and bustle, frantic rhythms of life our society imposes on us, and her ability to stay still and to be present with herself in her intention to incardinate herself as an undoubted celebrity and to depict her emotions and sensations in her books. Her language, so “precise and secret”, “was not even/a code, it was snow,/there could be no translation. /To save this language/we needed echoes,/we need to push back/the other words, the coarse ones/spreading themselves everywhere/like thighs or starlings.”. as well as the core of her contents, denotes an arduous unpathomability for the literary critics, being her style cryptical and, at the same time, fabulous and mysterious, by the use of metaphors and wordplays that try to join the mere external material aspect with the rich and precious inner world observed through the lens of her “scandaleyes”. As I noted in my poetry, “You will recognize me/ mirroring your soul in mine/ embrace me in all my tiny wholeness/ drawing in the infinite sky,/ distant reminder of a cosmogonic universe/ vast enough to enclose us/ and small enough to fit inside our hearts, a crown of thorns”[10]. In fact, Atwood added: “To live without mirrors is to live without the self. She is living selflessly; she finds a hole in the stone wall and on the other side of the wall, a voice. The voice becomes her mirror”.[11]

The recurrent theme of duality throughout Atwood's literary production is especially examined in Two-Headed Poems, like double ends in our scruffy hair, to explore the dark and bright side of our spirit, and its duality, flowing down in a pen or by hitting fire on the keys of a type-machine, mastering the gearing up of electronic devices, “other” than us, not properly an extension of what we are or chose to manage, but just an instrument that can strike or kill consciousness and its awareness, straightly sinking in our instinctive personal emotions, as a bursting sawn-off shotgun, or breaking the silence of resignation with the asperities and dryness that the sour pain of the world has been provoking in the drifting of our destiny, restlessly polluting the liquid drops of crystals whose are made up our intimate need of brotherhood and linking bounds of any sort of love.

The fear of the “duplicitous” heart becomes a wry acceptance of its quirks (“you’ve shoved me this far, / old pump, and we’re hooked / together like conspirators”), along with the fright of the emptiness of words (as, at the end of the “Five poems for Grandmothers”, “I make this charm / from nothing but paper; which is good/ for exactly nothing”), become the assertion of the claim of words upon the world, and the metaphor of twins and duplicity is nothing but the metonymy of woman’s experience transmitted through motherhood (“a long thread of red blood, not yet broken”) and of her kinship with the land.[12]

Two voices

took turns using my eyes:

one had manners,

painted in watercolours,

used hushed tones when speaking…

The other voice

had other knowledge:

that men sweat

always and drink often,

that pigs are pigs

but must be eaten

anyway, that unborn babies

fester like wounds in the body,

that there is nothing to be done

about mosquitoes;

one saw through my

bleared and gradually

bleaching eyes, red leaves,

the rituals of seasons and rivers

the other found a dead dog

jubilant with maggots

half-buried among the sweet peas.

(“The double voice”[13])

The implication of juxtaposing “jubilant” with “maggots” and “babies” with “mosquitoes” is lucid and non-apologetic. Atwood neither judges herself nor apologizes, but almost flaunts the image of the double self, freeing herself and maybe all of us. Her capacity to name the maladies takes her poetry from its early passive hostility to involvement, movement, and finally identity.

Atwood takes a sidelong glance at the world from within the dark oval on the cover of Selected Poems[14]. She looks exactly as we might have pictured her: intelligent, forbearing, but, most of all, vulnerable. Hers is a face in a locket. The eyes won’t look directly at you, but they see. The mouth almost smiles, is almost sad, almost hard…a portrait of contradictions that only an enlightened soul could understand, sympathetically, in a freaking sound of emotions, raising up to the head and making the impossible finally possible, and transforming the indecipherable way of saying into something stronger and as ever real, planting a flag by the simple use of words, punctuations, and suspense[15].

In this collection of poems, Atwood questions what is lost by becoming part of a pair. Siamese twins often share body parts, organs that neither twin could live without. She’s reluctant to lose herself in another person, as evident in “Two Miles Away”:

Night rises from their bodies

and spreads over the hills

musty, smelling of thunder;

the air around their heads

thickens with ancestors.

Atwood portrays an interest in the self versus relationship, whether that relationship is to a lover, a daughter, or nature. In “Two miles away,” the author imagines a place away from home, which creates a distance from normal life, that is described as “the land of hope/fulfilled”, a place where questionable situations end positively.

Although the imagined place is a “desert”- a landscape which requires some kind of knowledge and skill to survive- there is some spiritual cleansing to be found. Atwood, aware of her surroundings, understands that she cannot successfully get through the desert alone, but she needs a partner for survival. This poem takes place at night, and the land smells of thunder, a promise of rain. Rainstorms are regenerative and, in the desert, they represent the link between the barren landscape and life.

Therefore, she perceives everything as an agent for connections and creates relationships by tying partners together in the world around her, such as ‘the hammock '[16], which “weaves one tree to another”. Instead of the trees serving the hammock, the author sees this last serving the trees by bringing them together, creating a partnership between two entities. Then, she notices the ‘sandbox in moonlight’ and ‘the green shovel’ within it. Similarly to the two trees and the hammock, the sandbox would be meaningless without a place to dig in. Atwood conceives everything as a liaison, and she deduces how mutual dependence is what keeps the world alive.

The author is not sure if she can envision herself in such a dependent relationship. She questions, “Is this where I want to be,/is this who I want to be with” because she’s unsure if she wants to continue proceeding in a relationship. Her fears of becoming “half of a pair/half of a custom” show her ruminating on the concept of losing herself in a binding relationship, as, along with a partner, she would no longer be whole. The custom of giving herself over to another to create something new, like the hammock and the trees, leaves her with the inability to be whole on her own.

Atwood would become, in a sense, a Siamese twin, so that her life would be dependent on the life of another human. The author considers all possibilities within the realm of her existence, instead of settling for what has been provided to her. Though being aware of the softness of a ‘nose against neck’ and ‘knee thrown/over the soft groin’, she cannot give herself completely over to the custom, but she ‘dreams of separation’, highlighting the dichotomous nature of everything.

The notion of dreaming drives the poems in this collection: in the title poem, Atwood’s dreams are ‘of freedom, a hunger/for verbs, a song/which rises liquid and effortless’. The author likens freedom to ‘a hunger/of verbs’, a metaphor that shows a deeper appreciation not only for the action, but also for language. The action of the verbs is not as important as the words used to symbolize it; the words create ‘a song/which rises liquid and effortless’. Atwood believes the hunger she feels is natural, and it rises as easily as a ‘double/gliding beside [her]’. She completely discloses her obsession with the nature of duality. She explains that there are two selves: a self and a double, that, perhaps, ventures away from the self, as in a dream, and lives the life the individual creates.

Atwood explores yet another duality of human nature in naming ‘our other dream to be mute’. According to the title poem, we all dream of silence, of an inability to voice our emotions. Atwood, aware of her duplicity, investigates how simple life could be without the capability to be self-aware. However, this dream of silence will never be realized, at least for the speaker of these poems, who, by undertaking opposing viewpoints, creates a constant dialogue where the speaker is always in conversation with herself.

Atwood realizes that her dreams ‘are not bargains’: we humans can’t trade our dreams for comprehension or singularity in our emotions: ‘Often [our dreams] settle nothing’ because they are not equal to any currency of understanding. The dialogue is a symbol of survival, of life, and without conversation, no discoveries can be made.

‘You begin’, the final poem of this collection, is presented in second-person, a craft choice most poets would shy away from. In fact, writing in third-person removes agency from the speaker and directly addresses the reader. In this poem, it’s set out, ‘this is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world’. By pointing out what is tangible, what can be seen, felt, and heard, the author is letting go of her uncertainty and turning to things that cannot be or be wrongly interpreted.

Moreover, Atwood directs the reader’s attention to the outside world. She writes down that ‘outside the window is the rain, green/because it’s summer’. This line harkens back to the desert in the previously cited ‘Two Miles Away’, where a rainstorm approaches the barren land. Now, at the end of the collection, the rain, the fruition of life, has come (the world is green “because it is summer”). Beyond the window there is the world, ‘which is round’. The author brings our attention to the simple facts that we take for granted. She understands that things are sometimes different from what they appear: the same world is fuller/and more difficult to learn than I have said”. This line is a plea for the reader to see beyond the obvious, to imagine beyond binary thinking.

The obsession with duality becomes an understanding of the circumspective nature of the world, that not only is round but it’s ‘not flat’, unfolding the meaning that ‘it begins, it has an end’ and that it ‘is what you will / come back to’. Using sparse language and short line length, Atwood creates a voice that examines the nature of the world, being the dialogue with the self and the world necessary if we are to understand this latter, whose duality surpasses black and white, extending itself to an unrealizable spectrum of shades. In fact, there are ‘more colours/ that we can see’. She urges the reader to consider all the possibilities that may not be obvious at first, both in the outside world and within the realm of the self. The author continues to assume the role of a teacher by explaining to the reader that ‘once you have learned these words/you will learn that there are more/ worlds that you can ever learn’, by completing, in this way, the narrative arc of Two Headed Poems, and acknowledging that she has grown, as, how it’s said at the beginning of the book, she didn’t know how much anyone can learn everything.

The poems, in this recollection, constantly depend on one another to survive in the world of dualities. Like the poems, people must not only depend on one another, but also be depended upon.

In tone, the narration is at once coolly documentary and hotly magically maternal: the narrator’s stark details make the human side of the event even more emphatic, much like T.S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi”. This is the rendering of the momentous and inhuman occasion juxtaposed with the bare, earth-smelling bones of human grief.

Furthermore, scrolling down through the scale of questions, it’s been suggested that her way of working by the use of different “voices” in her poetry evokes a somewhat different “personality,” and she has always readily affirmed to get a totally different one. Through readers and critics make connections because the same name appears on those different forms, she bets that she could invent a pseudonym for a reviewer and that no one would guess it was her.

For Atwood, poetry is the most joyful form of writing, and she doesn’t like being in the position of pontificating about the truth. As usual for North Americans, more than for English people, she has often been mistakenly misunderstood because of her use of the first-person form, and she was interpreted as an autobiographical author. She rebutted that the central character of her writing was not her. Furthermore, she added that she found it necessary, in order to write about a place, to have actually been there. She can invent characters, but she’s absolutely dependent on the details of the material world to make a space for them to move around in. From this perspective, duality could be enlarged in the analysis of the macrocosm, seen through the lens of a sharp and careful humanistic outline of the realm of the psyche. Sounding out the origins of the world itself, she undertakes a relentless soul-searching to understand where the world will go and the fate of mankind.

In ‘Margaret Atwood’s humor’, Marta Dvorak depicts Atwood’s main postmodern techniques and textual practices, using a Bakthinian approach, also owing much to Linda Hutcheon. Dvorak traces the prominence of the satiric pulse in the writer’s multi-generic work. The carnivalesque drive takes on different strategies, among which Dvorak describes with precision the presence of multivoicedness and orality, the strong dialogue that characterises much of Atwood’s output, and her intertextual and parodic games. Atwood’s whole palette of comicity, from benevolent irony to ridicule and absurd via more aggressive parody and satire, is disclosed in all her writings. Branko Gorjup’s ‘Margaret Atwood’s poetry and poetics’ (130-44) tackles the difficult task of widely describing over thirty years of poetic output, so far published in eleven collections. The essay describes them in chronological order, briefly stopping in some of Atwood’s most celebrated poems, like ‘This is a Photograph of Me’ or the ‘Circe/Mud Poems’, and her long-established critical notion of dualities and metamorphosis in her poetics. Reingard M. Nischik’s ‘Margaret Atwood’s short stories and shorter fictions’ (145-60) faces another difficult common topic in the various narrative strategies: their open-endedness and their Canadianness,,to which is to be underlined a postmodern rendering of the Baudelairean prose poem[17].

Neology is an outstanding feature to be analyzed in Atwood’s texts that portray worlds which are mimetic to the reader’s world. In these texts, we are likely to find new characters, new places, and a host of new objects. Concerning neologisms and nonce formations, there is general agreement among linguists as to the difference between the terms, as well as to the fact that both types of coinages are linked by a process of progression or development that encompasses institutionalization, i.e. the integration of an item into the lexical stock of a language, which goes hand in hand with its listing in reference dictionaries.

Neologisms are words that represent an advanced state of ad-hoc formation in terms of higher frequency, tentative familiarity among the speakers of the language community, and stronger context-independence. Also, they seem to be coined to refer to new objects, events or ideas. By contrast, nonce formations are context-dependent, not coined for permanence, not stored in the lexicon, non-institutionalized, and only with repeated occurrences in different contexts may we begin to consider them neologisms. Kerremans rightly qualifies his description of neologisms by adding that they are «form-meaning» pairings (lexical units) that have been manifested in use. Thus are no longer nonce-formations, but have not yet occurred frequently and are not widespread enough in a given period to have become part of the lexicon of the speech community and the majority of its members. In this way, she takes into account the fact that, when a neologism is fully institutionalized, it is technically no longer a neologism. Adopting a Saussurean perspective, Kerremans considers form-meaning pairings and describes as neologisms combinations of a new form and a new meaning, a new form and an existing meaning, and an old form and a new meaning, the last combination being «new to the speakers and therefore a neologism». This classification is actually based on Tournier’s proposal of macro-mechanisms by means of which new words are coined in English. These processes comprise the coinage of «morpho-semantic», «morphological» and «semantic» neologisms. Mattiello notes that some coinages are borderline cases between «nonce formation and true neologisms», and she mentions ad-hoc formations occurring in poetic language as examples. Even though these items are attested «only once» and «not recorded in lexicographic works», they belong to the «literary heritage of a language», and they may even be «reused» by other authors using «poetic licence».

As regards neosemy, Munat describes neosemes as «new meanings attributed to already existing words», and Kerremans talks about semantic changes (an existing form with a new meaning) as a type of neologisms. Along similar lines, Tournier and Lipka agree that semantic neologisms can be coined by means of metaphor (semantic transfer based on similarity) and metonymy (semantic transfer based on contiguity).

When decoding neologisms, nonce forms or neosemes, the readers may not grasp the exact meaning, but «they are familiar with the word-formation process by means of which the word has been assembled and can infer general semantic characteristics from this process. Besides, the writer will aid the interpretation of the coinage in various ways, i.e., by assuring morphological transparency or by resorting to a supportive context. The process of context-dependent selection is also noted by Cruse and is of particular importance in the interpretation of neosemes.

It must be considered that, from the point of view of the reader, Atwood’s new coinages could be regarded as nonce forms: they can only be interpreted in the light of the context of the novel and they do not occur outside that context, they are not stored in the lexicon and they are not institutionalized by their presence in reference works. However, they can also be regarded as borderline cases how explained by Mattiello: they deserve attention because they belong to the literary heritage of a language and they can be used again by other authors. These items turn out to be actual neologisms: they are created to refer to new objects, events or ideas, they are frequently used, and the speech community is familiar with them. Concerning neosemes, and following Kerremans, they will be regarded as a type of neologisms in which an already existing form is paired with a new meaning.

Lastly, a few lines should be devoted to the difference between creativity and productivity concerning the lexicon. When analysing morphological productivity, Bauer suggests treating productivity and creativity as hyponyms of innovation, and distinguishing them by means of

rule-governedness: productivity is rule-governed whereas creativity is non-productive, unpredictable and rule-changing. He eventually puts forward that both productivity and creativity could be regarded as prototypical categories along a cline, with clear cases at either end but «no valid way of drawing a clear distinction between what is creative and what is productive». In her discussion on lexical productivity and creativity, Munat draws on Bauer’s work and concludes that creative coinages «change the rules» while productive coinages «exploit the rules». Keeping this distinction in mind, the morphological coinages analysed here are basically the result of productivity, since they are the rule-governed outcome of current word-formation devices.

Formulaic expressions are, instead, semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices» and «must be understood holistically. In her study on formulaic patterns as a means of lexical expansion, Filatkina suggests that «in the lexicon of a given language, preconstructed conventionalised items seem to be as productive as free word combinations». Although formulaic language is described as being basically fixed, it is quite a multifarious phenomenon, as shown by Schmitt and Carter: formulaic sequences can be long or short, or anything in between. They are commonly used for different purposes. These sequences can be totally fixed (Ladies and Gentlemen) or have a number of ‘slots’ which can be filled with appropriate words or strings of words. Schmitt lists the following functions of formulaic language in language use: «discourse organization», «precise information transfer», «functional use» and «social interaction». As for these last two, the functional use refers to «such (speech) acts as apologizing, making requests, giving directions, and complaining. These functions have conventionalized language attached to them». Concerning social interaction, Schmitt affirms that sometimes «social solidarity» may be the aim of a conversation. Therefore, «people rely on non-threatening phrases to keep the conversation flowing, including comments about the weather, agreeing with your interlocutor, or providing backchannels and positive feedback to another speaker». There are different reasons for coining previously non-existent words: as Kerremans notes, words formations occurs because «the correct word does not automatically spring to mind» or because «existing words are not adequate to capture a particular concept or message». Coinages also arise due to «humorous, stylistic or creative reasons». However, they commonly respond to pragmatic needs, since they «accurately name and refer to non-existing objects and ideas». Furthermore, the reasons for neology are often euphemistic (exerting subtle control and hiding inconvenient connotations), social (they enhance power relations and gender inequality), and ideological.[18]

Atwood's eighth book of poetry, Two-Headed Poems, published in 1978, is, as noted by the author, “not a debate/but a duet/with two deft singers”. Deaf singers because of a distinctive element: the openness from oneself to “the other”, that “has the same words that you don’t say and this scares us”.

Two-Headed Poem concerns the issue of being a Canadian neighbor to a world power whose corrupt values are expressed in this “duet”. Like the brilliantly conceived metaphor of the Siamese twins, described as “joined head to head, and still alive”…whose “heads speak sometimes singly, sometimes/together, sometimes alternately within a poem./ like all Siamese twins, they dream of separation.”, the fate of Canada and US is inevitably interconnected. In this poetry, in fact, are showcased moments where the voices of the two countries overlap and diverge. At times, it’s evident which one speaks, but not always, mainly because the two countries share a lot of common characteristics:

“ As for us, we are neighbors,/ we’re the folks whose taste/ in fences and pink iron lawn flamingos/ you don’t admire. All neighbours are barbarians, / that goes without saying,/ though you too have a trashcan.) We make too much noise,/ you know nothing about us, / you would like to move away. Come to our backyard, we say, friendly and envious, but you don’t come.”

For this purpose, it must be stressed another duality: the significance of emotional attachment and conflicting neighbourhood, as historically shown by many psychologists in the study of human relationships.

Atwood strives to find a common ground:

As for us, we're neighbors,

we're the folks whose taste

in fences and pink iron lawn flamingos

you don't admire.

(All neighbors are barbarians,

that goes without saying,

though you too have a trashcan.)

We make too much noise,

you know nothing about us,

you would like us to move away.

Come to our backyard, we say,

friendly and envious,

but you don't come.

Instead your quarrel

among yourselves, discussing

genealogies and the mortgage,

while the smoke from our tireless barbecues

blacken the roses[19].

All this, opening at the same time, to the notion and meaning of being a foreigner, -“Our leader/ is a man of water/ with a tinfoil skin. He has two voices,/ therefore two heads, fours eyes, (see the metaphor of the “prism” and the role of the “mirrors”)/two sets of genitals, eight/ arms and legs and forty/toes and fingers./ Our leader is a spider, / he traps words. / they shrivel in his mouth, /he leaves the skins. /Most leaders speak/ for themselves, then/ for the people./Who does ourleader speak for?/How can you use two languages/and mean what you say in both?/No wonder our leader skuttles/sideways, melts in hot weather,/ corrodes in the sea, reflects/light like a mirror,/splits our faces, our wishes/is bitter.” - and, consequently, the fickle balance between the previous cited sense of attachment and the self.

Is it so wrong a bond of close relationship and this sense of attachment? This should be the final outcome that Atwood longs for, as demonstrated in all her writing career. It should never be, by respecting the right boundary and the need of a reciprocal space, that’s to be oneself, as, unfortunately, if you don’t exist there could never be a room for coexistence and team-playing.

“If I were a foreigner as you say, /instead of your second head,/ you would be more polite./ Foreigner are not there:/ they pass and repass through the air/ like angels, invisible/ except for their cameras, and the rustle/ of their strange fragrance/ but we are not foreigners/ to each other, we are the pressure/ on the inside of the skull, the struggle/among the rocks for more room,/ the shove and giveway, the grudging love,/the old hatreds. / Why fear the knife/ that could sever us, unless/ it could cut not skin but brain?"

Soon after what she reckons about the foreigners’ language:

“You can’t live here without breathing / someone else’s air,/ air that has been used to shape / these hidden words that are not yours./ This word was shut / in the mouth of a small man / choked off by the rope and gold/ red drumroll./ This word was deported. /This word was guttural, / buried wrapped in a leather throat/ wrapped in a wolfskin./ This word lies/ at the bottom of a lake/ with a coral bead and a kettle./ This word was scrawny, / denied itself from year/ to year, ate potatoes, / got drunk when possible. / This word died of bad weather. Nothing stays under/ forever, everyone/ wants to fly, whose language/ is this anyway?/ This words are yours,/ through you never said them,/ you never heard them, history/ breeds death but if you kill/ it you kill yourself. What is the traitor?”

Another sticking point of these poems is the role of the leaders and their use of language and she wonders if it would be better to talk about US or U.S. and if it’s really implemented the constitutional preamble proclaiming the celebre ‘ We, the people’?

It wasn't you crippled rhythm

I could not forgive, or your dark red

skinless head of a vulture

but the things you hid:

five words and my lost

gold ring, the fine blue cup

you said was broken,

that stack of faces, gray

and folded, you claimed

we'd both forgotten,

the other hearts you ate,

and all that discarded time you hid

from me, saying it never happened.

There was that, and the way

you would not be captured,

sly featherless bird, fat raptor

singing your raucous punctured song

with your talons and your greedy eye

lurking high in the molten sunset

sky behind my left cloth breast

to pounce on strangers.

How many times have I told you:

the civilized world is a zoo,

not a jungle, stay in your cage.

And then the shouts

of blood, the rage as you threw yourself

against my ribs.

As for me, I would have strangled you

gladly with both hands,

squeezed you closed, also

your yelps of joy.

Life goes more smoothly without a heart,

without that flyblown lion, magpie, cannibal

eagle, scorpion with its metallic tricks

of hate, that vulgar magic,

that organ the size and color

of a scalded rat,

That singed phoenix.

But you've shoved me this far,

old pump, and we're hooked

together like conspirators, which

we are, and just as distrustful.

We know that, barring accidents,

one of us will finally

betray the other, when that happens,

it's me for the urn, you for the jar.

Until then, it's an uneasy truce,

and honor between criminals.[20]

In all her poems are essential themes such as invasion, displacement, evolution, and reversion. The self, in fact, is constantly split in its attitude to the forms and spaces it inhabits: spaces in time become forms and forms become spaces, as demonstrated by the Canadian’s encounter with landscape and with the past, preserved in part by nature, that is to say, with its pioneer ancestors, with native people and with his own primordiality. We can also note its pertinence with the current re-definition of femininity, and behind the feminine and the Canadian, the individual.

Atwood's spaces are rooms, houses, even human bodies. How these spaces were created, inhabited, and sometimes abandoned is recorded in the journals and letters of the pioneers, which provide an enlightened background to her poetry. They always concern some kind of journey: the journals and guide are the archetypal Canadian literary forms and function in the Canadian literary imagination.

In Atwood’s poetry are recurrent reflective surfaces (mirrors, eyes, glass, photographs) that rarely allow one to penetrate behind or below. In “Tricks with Mirrors”, for example, the loved one is forever trapped behind the narcissistic reflection of the lover. The subjects in “This is a photograph of me” and “Girls and Horse,1928” are similarly trapped behind the photograph, which is a sheer surface representation of an instant. They are part of a solid world only in the sense of being dead and no longer selves. The solidity of unstructured space is usually represented in Atwood’s poetry, befitting the Canadian landscape, as green. Susanna Moodie is “crept in/upon by green” in “Departure from the Bush”; water is a “green violence” in “River”; a “green vision” invades the progressively insane pioneer; and those charting the land in “The surveyors” find themselves “changed/by the gradual pressures of endless/green on eyes”. We can’t inhabit this green unstructured space even if we discover it: the most we can do, and the most that Atwood and other pioneers do, is to wrest a living-space from the wilderness. Otherwise, we become an undistinguishable part of the landscape, retreat to the animal and primitive recesses of our being. What this means emotionally and sexually is that we can’t gratify our desires fully, truly inhabit the other person.

Her journeys go back, instead of forward, in recognition of the fact that metamorphosis is not just spatial but temporal, because these metamorphoses can be replayed by vestigiality, by re-enactment, by dream, by racial memory that is imagination. We can only be one with the past. The traumatic feeling of being cut off from it is assuaged by this, above all, by the life-forms and culture-forms that have long since vacated their temporal substance but can be inhabited by a protean poetic imagination.

At this point and on this issue, one can refer to another of Atwood's masterpieces that presents several analogies with “Two Headed Pomes”: Surfacing, a poetic novel focused on a woman's spiritual quest as its protagonist looks for redemption. Its powerful religious vision deserves special attention of feminist critics, both in religion and literature.

Surfacing was to be a ghost story, set in the haunting landscape of northwestern Quebec and it was also familiar with stories of people going mad in the woods, written while Atwood was working on poems called Poems for Voices, published in 1970.

The protagonist of this novel under examination is an unnamed, unsuccessful commercial artist in “the city” (Toronto), who left her isolated in a rural background and family nine years earlier and entered into an empty marriage. Following an emotion-numbing abortion and divorce, she returns to her “home territory” with three companions – Anna, Anna’s puerile husband David, and Joe, David’s friend and the narrator’s lover. The object of the narrator’s return is to find her father, a voluntary recluse reported missing by one of the few people who kept in contact with him in his isolated lake preserve in the backwoods of Quebec[21].

Because certain features of Atwood’s protagonist's vision come from her experience as a twentieth-century woman, the interpretation of Surfacing as a spiritual quest leads to distinguishing between the spiritual and social fields. The social quest is a search for self in which the protagonist begins in alienation and seeks integration into a human community where she develops herself more fully, trying to discover or create a different sort of society.

The distinction between spiritual and social quests underlines this important dilemma of feminist criticism. If feminism is primarily defined in social terms, this novel would have to be conceived as proto-feminist or transitional.

The spiritual quest of the protagonist begins with a return to the Canadian wilderness where she lived as a child, in search of her missing father, who is presumed dead. The external detective story of the narrator-protagonist's manhunt is paralleled by an internal search to discover how she lost the ability to feel, while the readers struggle to make sense of the inconsistencies in her story about her marriage, husband, and child. The unravelling of her father’s mystery brings her to the powers which enlighten her as they had possibly enlightened him, but the unfolding of her own mystery is the key to the redemption she seeks. The two mysteries intersect when she recognizes “it was no longer his death but my own that concerned me”. First, like her three friends, she’s completely cut off from her past. Second, she has lost the ability to experience normal feelings. She recalls that her current manfriend Joe was impressed by her coolness the first time they made love, but she found her behaviour unremarkable because she didn’t feel anything. She’s tortured by Joe’s demand whether she loves him, because she doesn’t believe this word has any meaning. The protagonist's alienation from her feelings is reflected in her dispassionate voice: everything is seen, nothing is felt.

The reader is also alerted by her record of how she copes with pain: “I bite down hard into the cone and I can’t feel anything for a minute but the knife-hard pain up the side of my face. Anesthesia, that’s one technique: if it hurts, invent a different pain.” The protagonist's inability to feel is paralleled by an inability to act. Her selective vision holds fast to the illusion that she’s helpless and “they” do things to her. Angry over the loss of her parents, she accuses them of having hurt her.

Always conscious of how she might be hurt, she remains oblivious to her power to hurt others. As the reader later discovers, she avoids confronting the centre of her pain, the place where she lost the ability to feel and to act – her betrayal by the first man she loved. Unable to come to terms with his violation of herself and of her body, she focuses her attention on the violation of the Canadian wilderness by the men she calls “Americans”. The conflict between technology and nature, Americans in powerboats and Canadian in canoes, refracts the protagonist’s pain: she experiences herself as the wilderness violated by nameless and destructive men. Her illusion that this last has no power to recover from American violation prevents her from realizing her power to overcome this frustration. Though the wilderness initially deflects her vision, in the end, it will provide the key, the revelation, which releases her power. At first, she seeks her lost power in the wrong places. Realizing that she lost her ability to feel somewhere in the past, she imagines that a simple return to childhood would have provided the answer for her. Searching through old scrapbooks kept by her mother, she discovers that she looked normal in all the pictures, but she didn’t find any clues there. She could find them, instead, in her drawings from her childhood or in surfaces from the garden. She remembers that once she thought a certain purple bean on a high pole was a sort of power. She says she’s glad the bean didn’t give it to her because “if I turned out like the others with power, I would have been evil”. Her association of power with evil and her dissociation of herself from both reserve a typical female delusion of interest, which conceals her complicity in evil and feeds her false belief that she can do nothing but witness her victimization. In order to regain her power, the protagonist must realize that she doesn’t live in a world where only others have power or do evil.

On the return track, the heron mediates the knowledge the protagonist needs to escape her passive scene of victimization, the delusion of her childhood innocence. For her, the heron is a sacred object, a mediator like Christ to the Christians. Reflecting on it again, she realizes that her passivity is not innocence, and memories of her active participation in acts of cruelty, equally senseless, surface in her as she remembers how she and her brother used to throw the “bad kind” of leeches into the fire. Though she feels trapped, recognition of her guilt and responsibility is a step toward claiming her power to refuse to be a victim.

With the path to redemption through childhood closed, the protagonist decides the clue to her redemption lies in deciphering her father’s final obsession, a series of unintelligible drawings or marks on maps. At first, she fears he had gone mad, but then she discovers he was copying Indian paintings and marking their locations on maps. She goes in search of the paintings to verify his sanity and her own. Deciding that one painting is submerged underwater, she dives deep into the lake to look for it. Instead of a painting, she discovers an image from her past: “it was there but it wasn’t a painting, it wasn’t on the rock. It was below me, drifting towards me from the furthest level where there was no life, a dark oval trailing limbs. It was blurred but it had eyes, they were open, it was something I knew about, a dead thing, it was dead”. The image of her dead father forces her to acknowledge both his sanity and his death. With the mystery of her father’s death solved, the image becomes a clue to her own mystery and death. The open eyes recall the bizarre image of her brother’s drowning, but with a shock, she recognizes, “it wasn’t ever my brother I’d been remembering”. The things approaching become the image of her aborted fetus “drowned in air”. This revelation unlocks the mystery of the confusing stories of the lover who told her to have an abortion. The protagonist sees the fetus as a living thing, not yet a child, but an animal deserving protection like the heron. “He said it wasn’t a person, only an animal; I should have seen that he was no different, it was hiding in me as if in a burrow and instead of granting it sanctuary I let them catch it”. Her abortion is nothing but a crime as the murder of the heron, but her guilt is more direct, because the creature was in her body. In such a way, she realizes why she hid her past in false memories. “It was all real enough, it was reality enough forever, I couldn’t accept it, that mutilation, ruin I’d made, I needed a different version”. She understands that the anesthesia of false memory has no escape, but rather the beginning of a fatal disease. The protagonist sees this new self-knowledge for what it is: a revelation from great powers. “These gods, here on the shore or in the water, unacknowledged or forgotten, were the only ones who had never given me anything I needed…the Indians did not own salvation but they had once known where it lived”.

In the presence of great powers, she feels the need to worship, to give a thank offering, so she places her sweatshirt on a ledge for the gods whose names she doesn’t know but whose power she has felt.

She correctly understands that her redemption derives from facing the truth and accepting the pain. Even more, the feminist critics note that the protagonist is divorcing herself from the interpretation men use to justify their crimes. She no longer believes killing can be justified, and she rejects her brother’s distinction between good leeches, which deserve to live, and bad leeches, which deserve to die. She rejects her lover’s distinction between good or legitimate fetuses, and bad or illegitimate fetuses, which must be killed. The feminist critic notes that the protagonist is allowing her own feelings, not male morality.

The revelations which come to the protagonist through the heron and the underwater image of death provide her with the knowledge that unlocks her past, but she finds the revelation incomplete. She believes a gift from her mother must complement her father’s gift. Searching again for something out of the ordinary to provide guidance, she senses power in one of the scrapbooks. It opens to her mother’s gift: a picture she had drawn as a child of “a woman with a round moon stomach: baby sitting up inside her gazing out”. That night, she conceives a child by Joe on damp leaves with the moon on her left. In a heightened state of awareness, she feels “my lost child surfacing within me, forgiving me, rising from the lake where it has been imprisoned for so long…it buds, it sends out fronds”. As she conceives, the protagonist resembles the virgin Mother goddesses of old times: at one with her sexual power, she is complete in herself, and the man is incidental. The protagonist’s extraordinary insight and awareness of her power alienate her from her friends. She realizes that if she wishes to pursue the revelations, she must choose the isolation of the visionary quest. Lying alone at the bottom of her canoe, she has a vision of the universe's great powers: the goats who have guided her journey: “Through the trees the sun glances; the swamp around me smoulders, energy of decay turning to growth, green fire. I remember the heron; by now it will be insects, frogs, fish, other herons”. The great powers of the universe transform the swamp; they transform the heron from death to life. This is the meaning of the incredible words she had spoken earlier, “nothing has died, everything is alive, everything is waiting to become alive”.

The protagonist recognizes her body as both a revelation and an incarnation of these great powers of life and death through the female experience of the transformations of parts of her body into plant, animal, and infant.

“My body also changes, the creature in me, plant-animal, sends out filaments in me; I ferry it secure between death and life, I multiply.”

The protagonist’s vision of this transformative energy is reflected in her characteristic perception of fluidity of the boundaries between objects, plants, animals, and humans. After her vision, she realizes that she can approach her parents, and perhaps the gods themselves, if she follows the path she has undertaken. “The gods, their likenesses; to see them in their true shape is fatal. While you are a woman, but after the transformation they can be reached”. Her transformation is frightening. Though she knows it’s “beyond any rational point of view”, it’s neither mad nor illogical.

She ritually breaks her connections to the human world, burning or purifying clothing, books, and everything in the cabin. She’s purified and transformed by immersion in the lake. Like the fetus in her womb, she changes in water. “The earth rotates, holding my body down as it holds the moon; the sun pounds in the sky, red flames pulsing from it, searing away the wrong form that encases me”. The powers guide her away from the garden, the house, into the woods. She becomes wild. She’s an animal. Having transformed, she experiences mystical identification with all forms of life, and she becomes the transformative energy: “I lean against a tree, I am a tree leaning…I’m not an animal or a tree, I’m the thing in which the trees and animals move and grow”. Later, she sees a vision of her mother feeding the birds; then her mother disappears, birds remain: she’s translated. The next day, she sees what her father has become, “it gazes at me with its yellow eyes, wolf’s eyes, depthless but lambent as the eyes of animals seen at night in the car headlights”. Complete in itself, the vision neither approves nor disapproves of her. The protagonist is terrified as she realizes that in the state of transformation, individual human identity has no meaning. Having given her a vision of their great power, the gods retreat into “the earth, the air, the water, wherever they were when I summoned them”. The protagonist returns to the cabin and opens a can of beans, symbolizing her coming back to modern human life.

“Awakening” or “surfacing” seem to be better metaphors for describing her spiritual experience. A second stage of the female quest is moving from victimhood to power. The female nature of the religious experience represented in Surfacing is also reflected in all the forms and the content of the spiritual vision. The transformative energy of life to death and death to life, which is the great power in Surfacing, and which is the great power worshipped by the Canadian Indians of the area where she sets the novel, is celebrated in myths and symbols. The traditional values derived from body and nature are identified primarily with women, both because of women’s close relation to them, especially in their traditional roles of childbearing and nurturing of the young, and because the culture-created males identify the traditional values their culture has transcended with the other, woman. This development translates the paradox that the surfacing of female values in alienated urban cultures may also be a return to some of the values of the traditional tribal or less urbanized civilizations.

Women experience close contact with nature because of the biological events of menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing, while men tend to lose it in urbanized cultures. The form in which Atwood’s protagonist sounds out the transformative powers of nature could be defined as a transpersonal manner of mystical identification, exploring unity with a nonpersonal energy. According to psychological theories, the primary form of knowing for females is by participation and identification. Women don’t radically differentiate self and other or develop a strong sense of individual personal identity as men do, and, in religious terms, it could be expected a participation and union of a nonpersonal core of the self with the whole.

Tribal and ancient peoples who worshipped natural powers, such as those represented in Surfacing, knew that the close connection of life and death in the hunting and agriculture cycles and in the birth were a reflection of their interpretation in all natural processes.

In Christianity, the transformative mysteries of birth and the earth were spiritualized. While tribal and ancient peoples knew the hunted or domesticated animal and the wild plant or crop as sacred sacrifices of human life, Christianity limited the understanding of sacrificial death to the sins of humankind.

Atwood suggested a direction for the transformation of modern religious consciousness, which might lead to a de-spiritualization of Western religious traditions, or to the development of new female-centred religious forms. Therefore, a recognition of the inevitability of death would be a reminder of the limitations of technological control, and it would provide a firm basis for the ecological ethic. Surfacing doesn’t fall into a sentimental naturism. The protagonist requires that some things must die so that others may live. The heron, symbol of integration with the environment, was seen in the process of killing a fish. Atwood’s novel's ethical vision doesn’t prohibit killing, but it restores a sense of worship, which recognizes that one sacrifices other beings to one’s need, but only if these sacrifices are truly necessary.

Women’s right to abortion has been a major issue in the feminist movement. In the novel, abortion is viewed as killing, and the protagonist feels guilt about having one. This book compares the fetus in the womb to an animal in a burrow, suggesting that the killing of a fetus is a crime to be compared with the killing of an animal.[22]

Surfacing synthesizes several topics that have always dominated her consciousness: the variety of language; the continuum between human and animal, human being and nature; the significance of one’s heritage, including not only personal ancestors but the gods and totemic figures of primitive cultures; the search for a location; a brutalization and victimization of love; drowning and surviving.

The narrator is physically mutilated, amputated, frigid and paralysed. She feels herself “cut in two” by her past experiences, while “the other half, the one locked away, was the only one that could live; I was the wrong half, detached, terminal”. Like Dante in the Dark Wood before his spiritual journey, the narrator no longer knows the way. Similarly, the narrator passes through hell and purgatory before reaching her destination, and the reader learns that hell is behind her and that the assimilation and acceptance of her previous suffering is the sacred path towards wholeness. As the second child of an English-speaking family in a Catholic and French-Canadian area, the protagonist had been exposed to a distorted alliance of religion and sex, both of which were viewed as obscene.

The narrator’s companions of her search for her father are symbolic extensions of her own personality. Her failure of maternity exacerbates her self-alienation. The flatness and one-dimensionality of her companions reflect her inability to relate to others and experience them on a more meaningful level. Later, as she gradually regains access to her deeper self, the others drop away, having served their purpose as escorts to the path, and she ultimately travels alone.

Submersion is one of the persisting images in Atwood’s writings, from Surfacing to The Circle Games, from The Journals of Susanna Moodie to Power Politics.

The themes and images, thus, acquire increasing poetic and mythic intensity in the middle and final sections of Surfacing.

She doesn’t find the rock drawings in the first trip: symbolically, this implies that she must penetrate the heart of darkness more deeply and alone.

On her second trip along the lake, without her companions, she reflects further on her ambivalent religious beliefs, attempting to sort out her present incomprehension:

Overhead a plane, so far up I could hardly hear it, threading the cities together with its trail of smoke; an X in the sky, unsacred crucifix. The shape of the heron flying above us the first evening we fished, legs and neck stretched, wings outspread, a blue-grey cross, and the other heron or was it the same one, hanging wrecked from the tree. Whether it died willingly, consented, whether Christ died willingly, anything that suffers and dies instead of us is Christ; […] the body worships with the blood and muscle but the thing in the knob head will not, wills not to, the head is greedy, it consumes but doesn’t give thanks.

After her effort to see the natural cycle of regeneration and redemption, she dives underwater in search of the rock drawings and, insofar as she immerses herself in her unconsciousness, she finds during her plunge that there is not the pictographs but the body of her father dead.

Whereas language has been the backbone to unlocking her past self, the narrator realizes she must transcend it to complete her quest, for “language divides us into fragments, I wanted to be whole”. Through this journey, Atwood describes the broader paradox of the writer, who uses language to signal what is ineffable, shifting to mythic images and suggesting the collective unconscious as proposed by Jung.

On the metaphysical level, the protagonist returns to the primeval knowledge of good and evil, when man was undifferentiated from god, unconscious of his separate and divided self. On the psychological level, establishing identification between both feminine (maternal, generative) and masculine (knowledge, wisdom) principles, she generates her own creative potentiality through rejoining the severed halves of her being. “The national mental illness” of Canada and illness itself is a metaphor of the human condition, and the only cure is a journey to self-discovery.

In Surfacing, the narrator has learned from the spirits that salvation and redemption are never complete; they must constantly be renewed in the present, and she also realizes she can refuse to be a victim or to play word games that in their falsification of reality, are a form of death[23].

In this poetic novel, Atwood's concern with the power of language on our relationship with nature, ourselves and other human beings is particularly trenchant. Surfacing couples the issue of language with the quest of self-knowledge. By her female protagonist, she identifies the search for wholeness with the rediscovery of the feminine, so long suppressed in Western consciousness. For the narrator of Surfacing, language has always been a problem: nameless in the novel and not given too much speech herself, she finds linguistic communication perplexing. Early in the narrative, she “discovered people could say words that would go into my ears meaning nothing”. Brought up in English-speaking near a French-speaking village in Quebec, she learns the terrifying likelihood of sound without scene and she’s equally puzzled to discover the arbitrary distinction language creates, which she deems neutral. Her linguistic innovations are tied to fantastic transfigurations, a sort of literary expressionism.

Unable to understand fully the way language can be separate from meaning, she remains vulnerable to such discrepancies. In Atwood’s thinking, Canadians and Americans, males and females, are, based on their conduct, identical – us and not them. Like the word neck, which divides the body from the head, “the language is wrong,” creating “the illusion” that two things are separate.[24]

While Surfacing has elicited a sizable body of scholarship dealing with the theme of self-discovery, the divided self and journey to the interior, nowhere can we focus on Atwood’s view of language, as she displays her profound distrust in this as a means of communication, proposing a non-verbal or meta-language as superior. She constructs this fiction by stripping away from her vocabulary all words that are expressive of emotion. She’s careful merely to state empirical facts: as she takes the reader along with her in her quest, she records with detachment all that she observes on the wayside. The book opens with a sentence which, on the surface, has all the detachment of a naturalist’s outlook:

“I can believe I’m on this road again, twisting along past the lake where the white birches are dying, the disease is spreading from the South, and I notice they have sea planes for hire”.

One of Atwood's ideas was that the conflict between the benevolent Wordsworthian idea of Nature – “Nature never did betray/the heart that loved her” – and the Darwininan one – “Nature, red in tooth and claw”, as Tennyson put it – was acted out in the fantasies she was studying through female figures who were, in part, Nature Goddesses[25]

Her search for her missing father also becomes a search for the lost gods of a tribe more ancient than either the French or the British. The Indians belong to the land, were autochthonous, in a way that none of the settlers could ever hope to be. Following the clues to the rock carvings, she confronts death in the unplumbed depths of the lake: “it was blurred, but it had eyes, they were open, it was something I knew about, a dead thing, it was dead”. As she dives and dives again into the lake, she at last finds what she has come to find: the powers of the gods which resides with the dead, and the power which resides in the unconscious.

After having railed against the language and having destroyed its logic, after breaking its rules, she arrives at the possibility of a new language. With the realization that words can be invented, she wakes from death into a new life. Accepting responsibility to invent words could also mean accepting responsibility to create out of nothing an ideal by the power of imagination.

Therefore, Surfacing becomes an artful demonstration of the capacity inherent in language to both destroy external reality and to create a new reality, perhaps more valid and truthful to inner experience.[26]

Her priority is with the way that structure has contributed to the female self-image that nineteenth-century women writers have called “mirror madness”. On one hand, the structure of Surfacing conforms to fairy-tale morphology; on the other hand, it functions to subvert that form, as both morphology and imagery create the complex web of subtextual meaning.[27]

Like the hero of the mythological quest, the narrator-protagonist must translate reality into the language of sanity. In keeping with this realization, she “surfaces”, she comes out as an actor on the stage, firmly believing that, according with what has been declared by Oscar Wild, Pirandello and Jim Morrison, donning a mask is the best way to profess the truth in a sort of experiential journey, going beyond the notions of pathos, death and mystery[28], choosing to return to Joe. Having recovered the capacity of love and faith, she has no one else with whom she can live out of her self-discovering, and, in conclusion, we can set out that this novel imaginatively extends the unity of theme and image of her previous work in order to achieve an original vision. Atwood brilliantly reveals through the structure of Surfacing how the process of myth, used in spinning out this ghost story, becomes a critical tool toward self-awareness, while at the same time the form of the novel also acts as a poetic meta-criticism of the mythic process[29].

Feelings of being marooned, beached, and stranded pervade Atwood’s poetry; wreckage and relics of relationships are strewn on her shores. Often, these feelings come from Atwood’s sense of being a woman in a man-dominated world. It is as if women have suddenly surfaced; forms, spaces, and roles are inescapable. In fact, form, as Bachelard said, is the habitat of life and identity[30].

However, examining the role of Margaret Atwood as a sharp poet of contemporary Canadian literature, her experience spanning across five decades, we must point out to a spiking interview with the critic Joyce Carol Oates[31]. As an answer to the question about her influence on the wide array of writers globally spread, and whether hers was an experiment of “music” poetry or “statement” poetry, she replied that Poe had a hold over her back in high school, when she began writing. In fact, she doesn’t conceive poetry as a “rational” activity but as an aural one. Her verses usually have a kick-start with appealing words or sentences because of their enchanting sound rather than their mere meaning, and a shaking movement or phrasing of a poem is fundamental to her, but, like many modern poets, she tends to conceal rhymes by placing them in the middle of lines, and to avoid immediate alliteration and assonance in favor of echoes placed later on. In Atwood’s opinion, every poem has a texture of fizzy musicality which is as important as the argument. After a previous period of time in which she was concerned about the relationships between men and women, followed a phase in which she preferred to examine those among women themselves (grandmother, mother, daughter, sisters) and between cultures.

Two-Headed Poems reach a maturity that realizes the limitations of the self. Atwood begins to know and to insist on what she can hopelessly do or describe externally or in her interior world, as a melty-twisted-spring that doesn’t know who is or what she would be, maybe reaching out his expectations of an uncompromised, isolated, virgin of feelings, that he could ever imagine in his troubling head looking for peace or realize in his depictions in a mayhem of a surreal purity or something averaging more sacred than us, or nihilistically [pc1] absent:, in outer space dwelling or inhabiting in this world or other imaginary ones.

The pioneers’ physical journey was also a psychic one, during which the haughty Old War assumption that the self existed independently of its chosen habitats was progressively broken down. In Atwood’s opinion, the pioneer journey is an extended metaphor for her own journey through the emotional landscape of everyday life. It can no longer be literal because, although Canadians still traverse a vast terrain, they cannot recapture the settlers’ imperious feeling that they had discovered the land. That Indians had pre-empted the settlers didn’t diminish that feeling (the Indians were not really people, and when deceased cannot qualify even as ghosts). The pioneer journey is metaphorically presented in “Journey to the Interior” from The Circle Games. The similarities Atwood notices at the opening of the poem are not between coastal and interior topography, but between the real Canadian landscape and that psychic one Atwood inhabits. The coast and the interior are, in fact, radically different and offer a variation on the distinction between outside and inside. The wilderness outside the clearing represented danger and unfamiliarity, and the clearing's safety represents the security of daily life and the interior, the unknown, where there’s a lack of reliable charts. Atwood’s poetry, in fact, is a path into the interior landscape between insight and hysteria. Her very poetic voice, slightly paranoid, suits her theme of the metaphorical and divided self.

By analyzing the troubled neighbour relationships between the U.S.A. and Canada that shake nowadays global economy, nothing but a projection of the self in the other in a game of ostracized assimilations, is hinted in Two-Headed Poems, in which the double edge of everything is marked and faced, and more broadly enlarged to the conflict occurring between Gaza and Israel, staunch US ally, marked by continuous but unsuccessful diplomatic peaceful sit-downs, characteristic of the second Trump's mandate, the President that hasn't “said any promise” and that has lost his swagger, offering olive branches dodging the bullet of the beast of terror and the roughness of poverty and starvation perpetrated in name of heinous monotheistic ideologies that degrade any basic human rights, especially the conditions of women, towards a moral reasonable standard of financial and gender equality and prosperous democracies with an overlook on nowadays events, notwithstanding the volatile, toxic, and emotional wrecking TV broadcasting fentanyl. It's crystal clear how religions fuelled up fire on wars, catastrophes, and destruction under the sun and choking sultriness of the Middle East, over the land of Mother Earth, smeared by blood and violence (Hamas still remains in Gaza and Lebanon), unbalancing fickle equilibria, putting into place the most fierce and diabolic injustices.

All this is happening in the name of which worshipped God? For sure, this is not an Indian Summer.[32] Does faith presume credibility? For this purpose, it could be interesting to make a distinction between the concepts of faith and faithfulness, but bombing and hoping could never be a strategy, and faith is always a hope.

The exacerbated hegemonic ambition of global dominance of Trump's “America first”, always going the extra mile, and his war of tariffs makes Atwood wonder what art could exist under Trump in a 2017 piece republished in her latest collection of non-fiction Burning Questions: Essays &Occasional Pieces 2004-2021[33] . ‘Of what use is art?’, she asks herself, reflecting on art, political agendas, economic pressures, due to her moral obligations vs. the risks of propagandistic opportunism. “It’s tricky telling creative people what to create or demanding that their art serve a high-minded agenda crafted by others”, arguing that it is instead art’s privilege to “create alternate worlds that offer both temporary escapes and moments of insight; to open windows in the given world that allow us to see outside it” and reminding us of the multiplicity of choices.

For Atwood, politics and art inherently belong together, not believing that “art is over here and politics is over there, that it’s not two boxes”, as she has pointed out in an interview. In her pioneering poetry collection Power Politics[34], she addresses the intertwining of the personal and the political: “Power is our environment. We live surrounded by it: it pervades everything we are and do, invisible and soundless, like air”. For decades, Atwood’s work has resonated as tales of and testaments to political, socio-economic, and (bio)technological concerns of contemporaneous times. Atwood has been vocal about politics, engaged as an environmental activist, and she is involved with the PEN association. Moreover, her writings have recently acquired not only a new international artistic impact that underlines the fusion of politics and aesthetics her work stands for, but her fictional work has spilled over into real-life politics, inspiring feminist activism in particular with her classic female dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale and the publication of her Booker Prize-winning The Testaments[35], a revisiting of The Handmaid’s Tale, that came along with a global fanfare, live readings, and a “Margaret Atwood Live” broadcast to cinemas around the world.

If literature is a socially symbolic act, then Atwood’s works are paradigmatic cases in point how writing has political and transformative potential beyond the limits of the page. The Handmaid’s Tale and its transmedial adaptations in particular has extended beyond its textual limits. The Handmaiden gowns, originally a symbol of female subservience in the oppressive Gilead system, have been repurposed to symbolize female agency, resistance, and protest against the curbing of women’s rights, particularly under Trump’s first presidency and its conservative backlash agenda. In 2019, in fact, the signature Handmaid uniform — (predominantly white) women dressed in red robes and white bonnets, a practice that has not gone unchallenged by activists—that marks fertile women as reproductive slaves in Atwood's dystopia has become a viral visual feminist symbol of collective resistance against female oppression — women have been globally marching against right wing gender politics, e.g. in Poland, Argentina, Israel, or Iran — capitalizing on the effective and entertaining visual message imagery.

From her early publications, including The Edible Woman, Power Politics, or Surfacing, to her most recent literary works up to date, the handmaid outfits were, for instance, banned from the Women’s March for Abortion Rights in Washington, D.C., in 2021, because these risked obliterating historical and present oppressions of reproductive rights control, erasing the fact that Black women, undocumented women, incarcerated women, poor women and disabled women have always had their reproduction freedom controlled in this country.

Atwood’s most popular dystopian or speculative fictions, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, and the MaddAddam trilogy, stress the political power of storytelling, its ustopian capacity, its use of language and power, and its innate hope for a future dialogue.

Probably the most striking example of the power of language in Atwood’s work is the patrilinear renaming of fertile women, the so-called handmaids, after the Commanders in whose house they live and whose children they are to bear in The Handmaid’s Tale. Each handmaid’s original name is obliterated along with her individuality, taking on her predecessor’s name, composed of the Commander’s name and the preposition “of.” Thus, the protagonist June — Offred or “Of Fred” — literally becomes part of Commander Fred’s household commodities. Language here becomes the “law of the Father” in a Lacanian sense. Similarly, “Praise Be” or “Blessed be the Fruit” or “Under His Eyes” are formulaic phrases, emptied of all meaning, in Gilead that have lost almost all communication potential. Their main function is to maintain the system of power that is in place and prevent individualized communication, a deprivation of liberty through language control in Orwell's sense.

Anyhow, language can also be a tool of resistance. Storytelling allows Offred to distrust words for their multiple meanings. Her secret tale witnesses Gilead’s system; her personal story becomes a political story of defiance that contests Gilead’s official patriarchal discourse. Offred’s very story, her playful, ambiguous use of words, her questioning of meanings and explorations of ambivalences contradict Gilead’s monolithic linguistic regime. Atwood’s politics of literature draw our attention to multiplicity, polyperspectives, doubling, multiple versions of reality, unreliability, and fallibility.

While The Testaments, as a complementary text, adds Aunt Lydia’s reflections on her ambivalent role of both officially upholding and privately working towards overthrowing the Gilead regime in her secret Ardua Hall Holograph Records, an analysis of fairy-tale elements in The Heart Goes Last underscores how intertextuality functions as both a strategy to explore the politics of literary form and a meta-commentary on the role of language and literature. Storytelling and art are never without an inherent agenda. Instead, all storytelling, all art, is informed by politics and vice versa.

Crispin Sartwell reminds us, however, that power and politics always have an “artpolitical” dimension that inevitably draws on and makes use of specific “aesthetic systems” and “multimedia artistic environments”. As he succinctly puts it, “[n]ot all art is political, but all politics is aesthetic” (1). This artpolitical dimension likewise defines Atwood’s Penelopiad and the politics of resistance. Like power, resistance always inheres in social interactions and relationships. The periods of childhood, marriage, and motherhood in Penelope’s life point us to the central social and spatial domains and “low” art media environments in which she stages her politics of resistance in the form of a “little story-making” namely such domestic spaces as the king’s marital bed chamber or the royal nursery. These private spaces are marked by their everyday use, on the one hand, and their sexual intimacy with Odysseus and the center of supreme state political rule, on the other hand. In contrast, the twelve slave girls occupy the lowest social rank and are relegated to marginal spaces associated with “dirt”. Finally, it must be noted how Penelope and the slave girls undercut ideals and conventions of beauty respectively, joining the scholarly discussion of Atwood’s postmodern deconstruction and revisionism of classical and sociocultural myths about women in The Penelopiad[36].

Coming back to the troubled relationship between Canada and the USA, faced in Two-Headed Poems, Atwood jots down as follows:

In the evenings the news seeps in

from foreign countries,

those places with unsafe water.

We listen to the war, the wars,

any old war.

After the recent elections and Trudeau's resignation, Canada is on the verge of a dramatic escalation of conflict with the USA, imposing heavy levies on its exports and menacing an incorporation and agglomeration of its territory, considered as an indispensable appendix of their territory.

For this purpose, it must be vetted the relation between God and money must be vetted, overcoming a sense of measure, of what is limited, numbered, and finite, trying to surpass any limits, fact that is at the origin of wars. Mother Earth is the contact with reality, which makes us put our feet on the ground, being money, depending on its right management, the source of many meaningless schizophrenic games of power.

Could businessmen, well aware of their financial oversight, but often oblivious of the societal mechanisms, made up also of 'humanity', lead to a solution, to that 'continuous deal' to reach the peace or a fluid equilibrium, balancing the forces between static and dynamic, and between a yin and a yang that seem to rule out the whole world and the real existence of each of us? This matter appears to be a very arduous task nowadays, in Atwood's conclusions. Sometimes it looks so utopian and unrealistic without a common human effort against the will to possess – the land belongs to everyone – rather than the wish of building private islands for luxury purposes. In fact, perhaps, we need, at a certain point in our life, even a physical oasis in order to preserve, symbolizing, not only metaphorically, what is really precious inside of us. That is the main reason for withdrawal and isolation, partitions and watersheds, in a world that goes off the rails.

As a matter of fact, we could ponder the behaviour of a more and more common “Palla's cat-man”, a stepper cat-man that with its sinuosity has chosen to conform itself to the desertification of human values and unbalanced resources to survive. He has chosen to live in poverty, in a richer wild hermitage, to detach himself from the gearing up of machines and technologies, perfect engines, that then without fail break down (and when a vase breaks, it is useless to put the pieces together….it will never be the same), from the wars of power, from the hegemony of money, always a limit that all of us long for, a sense of protection and safety, as all of us, evidently, unconsciously look for an uterus.

Maybe, this is not a Nietzschean nihilistic concept (“Human, All Too Human”?). He’s probably a sceptical, disenchanted, surrendered symbol of that part of humankind that has decided not to take part in and to slip away from this controversial system of official government and to take a step back from it to confine himself in a more rewarding solitude. Money and the oasis - after all, a mirror of the same reality - spirit of adaptation, transformation, metamorphosis – to discover the essence, the 'everything', made of earth and spirit. At the end of the day, the “road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom“[37], topic resumed several times by Huxley and even obsessively by another Jim Morrison, another visionary poetic icon, educated to revolt, that has made of “The doors” of perceptions his battle cry and founded his career and personal lifestyle[38], to better explain, to reach a real awareness is needed, pushing ourselves beyond the limits imposed by cautiousness and orthodoxy, to explore deeply our passions and experiences, the law of life, with its asperities and contradictions, 'Two-Headed Poems'. The Earth is nothing but all what God, life's procreator, has given to us, and money, at the end of the games, is only scraps of paper, as those that we write down.

At this standpoint, we should wonder ourselves what does really mean ‘thinking out-of-the-box’, and where it will lead us to believe in some kind of saviour, other than us, our healthy interrelations, and sense of cooperation, meaning working together at the same time.

Where does is ended up our sense of sharing and solidarity, that furthermore is common to all the spiritualist thinkings and animistic religions, that's to say to soil ourselves of some kind of “sin” and that must be purified, letting us drift away by the tide of competition, from which remain just chipping debris of trees that have whatsoever dip their own roots in some strange spring of life?

In the realm of the confrontation with the U.S.A., who smear Canadian roses[39], and whose identity comes from “down there”, Americans are often associated with “nouns”, generally speaking, in a hostile way and as impatient to act on their own. Quoting a paragraph of Two-Headed Poems:

These candy hearts we sent you

in the mail, a whole

bouquets of hearts, large as a country,

these hearts, like yours,

hold snipers.

A tiny sniper, one in each heart,

curled like a maggot, pallid

homunculus, pinhead, glass/eyed fanatic,

waiting to be given life.

Soon the snipers will bloom

in the summer trees, they will eat

their needle holes through your windows[40].

In this context, Atwood’s proud patriotism is portrayed by a strong depiction of the important role of Canada and what exists “under the veil of the bride”, other than an advocacy, especially in relation to her country, for the feminine element residing inside of each of us and for women's issues and rights:

Our flag has been silence,

Which was mistaken for no flag,

Which was mistaken for peace[41].

And she added:

Our hearts are flags now,

they wave at the end of each

machine we can stick them on.

Anyone can understand them.

They inspire pride,

they inspire slogans and tunes

you can dance to, they are redder than ever[42].

In this poem, Atwood is also concerned about language as well as about actions, the non-verbal gestures. One head “asks”, “Whose language/is this anyway?” The corruption of Canadian English stems from the passive nature of a people glad to be Americanized, to shut down “the family business” that was “too small anyway/to be, as they say, viable”.

Two-Headed Poems presents a poignant commentary on the hurdles of communication and identity in a world marked by social and geopolitical proximity in an epoch approaching globalization, leaving the reader with a sense of the futility in the pursuit of a harmonious dialogue between the two nations.[43]

About the language of the leader, we should ask ourselves if it’s a matter of war or words, or war of words. As she sets out:

Surely in your language

no one can sing, he said, one hand

in the small-change pocket.

That is the language for ordering

the slaughter and gutting of hogs, for

counting stacks of cans. Groceries

are all you are good for. Leave

the soul to us. Eat shit.

In these cages, barred crates,

feet nailed to the floor, soft

funnel down the throat,

we are forced with nouns, nouns,

till our tongues are sullen and rubbery.

We see this language always

and merely as a disease

of the mouth. Also

as the hospital that will cure us,

distasteful but necessary.

These words slow us, stumble

in us, numb us, who

can say even Open

the door, without these different

smiles, apologies?

Our dreams though

are of freedom, a hunger for verbs, a song

which rises liquid and effortless,

our double, gliding beside us

over all these rivers, borders,

over ice or clouds[44].

Atwood is a fearless witness[45], a distant but never so closely, heartily involved bystander of the martyrdom of nowadays so-called civilization, mass-shooting by the use of a mouth that she could never shut: the pen, a, maybe, old instrument that could never be silent. It can bloody kill to death on the sly, you can consider who picks it up to be a sniper but it’s not, perhaps hidden but not so secret. It’s like embracing a gun, whose you can choose to polish the holster, that has the same, if not worse, firepower. In a world where denouncing can not be enough and everyone should be equal, it’s the only right balance, in the same comical and gruesome way Totò referred to us about a sullen level (la“livella”).

A similar problem arises after the third stanza of (“It is dangerous to read newspapers”):

Each time I hit a key

on my electric typewriter,

speaking on peaceful trees

another village explodes.

Atwood realizes that, although being highly literate, she’s just a chemical body keeping on hitting keys on her typewriting machine, trying to explore other horizons. She hasn’t simply prepared us for a kind of “liberal’s” guilt these poems bear, but these last begin so believably that their endings are anticlimactic and difficult to understand. She’s easily at her best on her own turf, with topics that feed and drive her personally.

Discussing about language, in Two-Headed Poems, she writes down:

We wanted to describe the snow,

the snow here, at the corner

of the house and orchard

in a language so precise

and secret it was not even

a code, it was snow,

there could be no translation.

To save this language

we needed echoes,

we needed to push back

the other words, the coarse ones

spreading themselves everywhere

like thighs or startlings.

[…]

Your language hangs around your neck,

a noose, a heavy necklace;

each word is empire,

each word is vampire and mother.[46]

This paragraph outlines a form of communication that is so specialized and inherent to its environment that it transcends standard translation or decoding. Key aspects of the poem’s exploration of language include the metaphor of snow, as Atwood suggests something natural, ephemeral, and impossible to capture or translate into coarse everyday words; the struggle of identity, as the poem often touches on the dualities of Canadian identity and the tension between different linguistic and cultural heritages; the physicality of language, as the text portrays language as a living entity, emphasizing that words carry the weight of history; finally, the exclusion of others, because the language is "secret," it functions as an internal bond that outsiders cannot access, serving as both a "heavy necklace" and a "noose" for those who speak it.

Two-Headed Poems represent a significant development in Atwood’s stylistic and thematic use of her characteristic materials. The title poems – an exploration of political violence and duplicity associated with male leaders and executors, focusing on Canadian relations- carry a rationale. “Sons branch out, but / one woman leads to another”: the branching out of territorial expropriation, political oppression, and the institutionalization of love and sexuality. Within this frame, woman must operate, but she is – as Atwood stresses, echoing Simone de Beauvoir – always “other” in her language, her experience, the topography of her world. Living in a world not of her own design, Atwood creates her own oral history in bonds with other women, with her children, and becomes necessarily bilingual and bicultural in movement between worlds.

In “Marrying the Hangman” these themes are merged as two kinds of history: the official, written history of a woman who escaped a death sentence, by convincing a condemned man to accept his position of hangman and to marry her, and the oral history of a violent encounter, shared among other women: “These things happen and we sit at a table and tell stories about them so we can finally believe”. Only through the constant interpretation of destructive bloodshed, war, and verbal and military violence, it could be found the real meaning of the world. As Two Headed Poems, this writing artwork is one to make the reader think about the control they have over the story of their lives, curtailing details. This is how truth gets lost, when the true stories don’t make all parties happy, insofar as many people try to change them, overturning their fate[47]. Atwood often uses allegory and symbolism to show that people’s perception can be unreliable, because people often twist the details of true stories. In this poem, in which she declares that people “carry what [they are] sailing with…the tide”,[48] for example, “the tide” stands for a series of constant transformations and the rising and falling of a wave, that, for her, is nothing else but the good and bad happening in the real world, the up and down of daily run out activities.

In conclusion, I could say that, among the intricacies that characterise also many other poems, in this article I choose to hint at these extracts, the central topics faced by Awood, that’s to say all the elements, such as peace and war, the concept of foreigner and the powerful use of language, the fragility and often misunderstood intimate nature of women, that often frighten and, at the same time, entice and thrill the author, defying any kind of stereotypes and misjudgments, prompting questions to the reader, challenging him to open reflections.

In fact, actually, Atwood ponders human behaviours, celebrates the natural world and condemns the materialism, consumerism and capitalism overwhelming and characterising modern and post-modern societies and their complex “fights for survival” in an entangling, crushing, absorbent system of never-ending and never settled out battle of the sexes, between the feminine and masculine element, of predominance, quirky confusional mixes and disorders coming out from all the bloody courses of “War and Peace”, a book of Tolstoyan wisdom that probably we'll never end to read out and characterizing what is, after all, the history of humanity, in its infinite cyclic nature and reality, surfaced in different forms, as highlighted and recriminated during the “hippies years” of the '68 uprisings [49], finding out ourselves in yearning for desertic and tribal magic, in idolizing wildlife reserves and energies made of flows, in order to oxygenate the layers of our psyche and to updraft prayers, made of tobacco and incense, in an unrestrained and unavoidable interstitial need in which nesting the words, and, for a moment, stopping ourselves to reflect about the reason why not everyone succeeds in preserving his own inner angelicity and ability of spiritual abstraction, even just to remind ourselves the womb of this Grand Mother that has given birth to us all and only one, in which we have forgotten the spirit of a common brotherhood that we have wanted to dismantle, to hurt, to vilify at the mercy of our selfishness and blindness, clouded by a contingent that we can't decontextualize, prey of our mere animal and fierce impulses that often demean our human condition.

Atwood explains: God is not the voice in the whirlwind, God is the whirlwind; at the last judgment, we will all be trees[50]. This Atwood's sentence suggests a vision of God not as a distant observer or voice talking behind the scenes, but as an active and overwhelming force incarnated in the turmoil itself of the world, similar to a hurricane or vortex that acts directly on reality and on human life. The “whirlwind” metaphor recalls biblical images, where God often seems to be a powerful and unrestrained natural force, but Atwood re-elaborates it in a poetic and modern key, emphasizing the idea of a dynamic and immanent presence.

The context of the quotation is poetic and reflective, in which Atwood explores topics such as judgment, transformation, and the connection between the human and the divine, arguing that divinity is not detached from the world but an integral and active part of it. She joins the idea of the powerful divinity with that of metamorphosis and entrenchment in nature. This quotation is often cited for its visual and conceptual impact, and it mirrors Atwood's style, which mixes mythology, symbolism and social observation.

This Atwood’s women’s survival guide[51]is also the pursuit of “self-definition”, that let her female characters fully express themselves. Being self-definition of utmost importance to this author, how she describes her writings is vital to understanding the intentions hidden by her poetry: acknowledging that the subject matter of much of her works revolves around feminist topics, Atwood wouldn’t outline herself as a feminist, as already broadly clarified in this dissertation, but as an author interested on discussing female and societal issues, as she believes that women should be allowed to do whatever they please and to act in the best way they express themselves. She could be defined as a proto-feminist writer.

Atwood’s works are renowned for their strong, debated post-feminist themes, exploring issues of gender, power, and oppression, in support of women’s rights. In fact, she depicts the challenges and struggles faced by women in patriarchal societies. Atwood’s female protagonists and characters are frequently complex and multifaceted and resist societal norms and conventions, subverting traditional gender roles and undermining power dynamics. Atwood’s exploration of gender's role presents a nuanced understanding of oppression.

In detail, this passage is pertinent to a proto-feminist, analytical perspective, developed throughout the years, on women and gender roles as they intersect with sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, ability, and age, encompassing several fields of study in which Atwood’s works could be applied, such as, for instance, humanities, social science, environmental studies, fine arts and education.

Feminism (‘70s onwards) and post-feminism (‘80s onwards) are two ideological phenomena and movements that have affected the sorts of women’s rights until nowadays and seek to address and advocate issues of gender equality. While feminism focuses on dismantling traditional gender forms, structures, and institutionalised sexism, post-feminism takes a more individualistic approach, emphasizing personal empowerment. It critiques feminism for being too radical and outdated. Feminism has been criticized for its lack of intersectionality and inclusivity, as early feminist movements were primarily led by white, middle-class women. On the other hand, post-feminism has been demonized for its focus on individual empowerment and choice, which can overlook the systemic barriers that continue to oppress marginalized groups of women. Feminism has had a significant impact on media and popular culture, challenging the representation of women in films, television, and advertising. It has played a crucial role in challenging societal norms around sexuality and body image, supporting sexual autonomy and body positivity. Post-feminism, instead, has been stigmatised for prioritizing a narrow definition of beauty and sexuality that aligns with traditional gender forms.

According to certain critics, while feminism focuses on challenging patriarchal structures, post-feminism re-evaluates the goals and methods of traditional feminism. Both movements have made significant contributions to the fight for gender equality, but they also have their own limitations. Post-modernism emerged in the late twentieth century, combining post-modern philosophy with feminist thought. It focuses on how social and political factors influence perceptions of gender and identity. This branch of feminism emphasizes the diverse experiences of women, moving from the idea of a universal female experience. A key concept is the social construction of gender, suggesting that gender roles are shaped by societal norms rather than being innate. Post-modern feminism rejects essentialism, arguing that gender roles are fluid, not fixed. It critiques dominant societal narratives that uphold patriarchal norms. From a civil rights law perspective, post-modern feminism advocates for laws that recognize diverse experiences and intersectional discrimination. Understanding post-modern feminism can help read more inclusive and effective civil rights laws, catering to the needs of those seeking equality and justice[52].

For this purpose, Atwood affirmed that feminism and gender equality are just delicate issues that cannot be generalized, as “women are a bit more than 50% of the human population, and obviously each woman is different. There are also about 75 types of feminism, among which only some are at odds with each other, but this fact shouldn't make any surprise. What women have in common are, instead, some structural disadvantages, depending on the place where they live, the economic resources of their families, and the law of their Country.

Atwood has chosen to mainly focus on how strictly stereotypeḋ gender roles force girls to run their ḋaily activities with any sort of restraints, denying them to unfolḋ parts of themselves that don’t comply with the generally accepteḋ social standards.

In her dystopian novel and enchanting poems, she firmly sets out that female gender roles are enforced by a system of indoctrination, where girls are told what they can and can’t do, or what they should or shouldn’t be.

The vocation of womanhood, in fact, could be compared with a menstrual bleeding in a pad, as a repeating cycle of desperate call for peace and advancement in the progressive destiny to give to the Earth[53]

If there’s a constant in the writings of Margaret Atwood, it is the presence of strong and complex female characters and women’s issues. Her protagonists are not perfect heroines, but women who stay in close contact with their emotions: fears, contradictions, true feelings, mood swings and fights against much arduous conditions and events.

To stress out this concept, in “A Red Shirt”, Atwood explains:

My sister and I are sewing

a red shirt for my daughter.

She pins, I hem, we pass the scissors

back and forth across the table.

Children should not wear red,

a man once told me.

Young girls should not wear red.

In some countries it is the color

of death; in others passion,

in others war, in others anger,

in others sacrifice

of shed blood. A girl should be

a veil, a white shadow, bloodless

as a moon on water; not

dangerous; she should

keep silent and avoid

red shoes, red stockings, dancing.

Dancing in red shoes will kill you.

But red is our color by birth-

right, the color of tense joy

& spilled pain that joins us

to each other. We stoop over

the table, the constant pull

of the earth’s gravity furrowing

our bodies, tugging us down .

The shirt we make is stained

with our words, our stories.

The shadows the light casts

on the wall behind us multiply:

this is the procession

of old leatherly mothers,

The moon’s last quarter

before the blank night,

others like worn gloves

wrinkled to the shapes of their lives,

passing the work from hand to hand,

mother to daughter,

a long thread of red blood, not yet broken.

iii

Let me tell you the story

about the Old Woman.

First: she weaves your body.

Second: she weaved your soul.

Third: she is hated & feared,

though not by those who know her.

She is the witch you burned

by daylight and crept from your home

to consult & bribe at night. The love

that tortured you you blamed on her.

She can change her form,

and like your mother she is covered with fur.

The black Madonna

studded with miniature

arms &legs, like tin stars,

to whom they offer agony

and red candles when there is no other

help or comfort, is also her.

It is January, it’s raining, this gray

ordinary day. My

daughter, I would like

your shirt to be just a shirt,

no charms or fables. But fables

Aad charms swarm here

in this January world,

Entrenching us like snow, and few

are friendly to you; though

they are strong,

potent as viruses

or virginal angels dancing

on the heads of pins,

potent as the hearts

Of whores torn out

by the roots because they were thought

to be solid gold, or heavy

as the imaginary

jewels they used to split

the heads of Jews for.

It may not be true

that one myth cancels another.

Nevertheless, in a corner

of the hem, where it will not be seen,

where you will inherit

it, I make this tiny

stitch, my private magic.

The shirt is finished: red

with purple flowers and pearl

buttons. My daughter puts it on,

hugging the color

which means nothing to her

except that it is warm

and bright. In her bare

feet she runs across the floor,

escaping from us, her new game,

waving her red arms

in delight, and the air

explodes with banners.[54]

The poem’s speaker is a mother, recalling these statements by men as she sews a shirt for her daughter. Mother’s focus reveals that even things as simple as clothing and colors are weaponized to control girls, a practice that hinders them from exercising self-expression. To make sense of the controversy behind the red colour, the mother studies the meanings associated with it: death, passion, war, anger, and sacrifice of bloodshed. The imagery of these definitions shows off that red colour is associated with being bold, loud, messy, complicated, and unpredictable, everything a girl is forbidden to be.

Atwood's focal point on social expectations about girls highlights that these are just as confining as their counterparts. If girls are not to be what red represents, they ought to be the opposite of this meaning, ‘a moon on water’, quiet, simple, and controllable.

The contents of “A red shirt” evaluate the pressure of conformity for growing up as girls. This maternal narration showcases the general effects of societal expectations, as the mothers strive not to pass down oppressive ideas to her daughter. In doing so, the mother is recognizing that strict ideas of femininity force young girls to conform to idealized versions of themselves, neglecting their own wants and ambitions, in favor of meeting social standards, a fate she wants to prevent for her daughter.

The speaker of Two-Headed Poems introduces her concerns by asking,” How can I teach her/some way of human being/that won’t destroy her?” This question uses figurative language to acknowledge that the patriarchy demands that a girl submit to those in power.

This ambivalent artist emotes a great sorrow in this outcome, confiding:” I would like to tell her, Love/is enough I would like to say,/ find shelter in another skin./I would like to say Dance/ and be happy”. In these lines, Atwood expresses her wish to allow young girls to remain blissfully unaware of the dangers of their emerging womanhood.

She notes: “Instead I will say,/in my crone’s voice, Be ruthless, when you have to, tell/the truth when you can,/when you can see it.” These words function as Atwood’s guidance for the survival of womanhood, as she prompts girls to be honest about who they are, even if honesty is brutal, something that is characteristic of her work.

The young girls of Two-Headed Poems can be considered as victims, and through the mother of “A red shirt”, Atwood points out the value of female agency, highlighting that women are human beings, not objects to be subjected to control.

Atwood has made a career of exploring female hardships and self-discovery, with poetry full of a deep outlook that enlightens the female pressures, asserting that women deserve to truly define their personality.

Still today, Atwood, heartfully and unceasingly, acts for peace against the widespread barbarity afflicting the world, and she advocates for an essentially feminist pacifism, elevating the women's role as an heralder of diplomacy, prosperity and beauty, quest for love, other than the transcendental hope of a feasible Paradise, with the talent to prefigure colourful optical and visionary images of conceivable scenarios, preconized by prophetic tones and ways and far-sighted precognitions, by which she aims for “changing the world” – “beauty will change the world”[55], according with standards of beauty and aesthetics[56], in which Atwood merges art and literature, and the literature in the art[57], with a plea bargaining between realty and thought, according to which madness is mystery and mystery is madness.

Conclusions

Margaret Atwood is not only one of the most eminent and versatile contemporary authors, but one of the most controversial Canadian writers, translated into forty languages or more, that has succeeded in standing out in her country and all around the word. Quoting Agostino Degas, Italian writer spotlighted even from Nobel Prize Rita Levi Montalcini, who, during her career has been able to paint of romance feminine universe, we can say about her:

“She was made of thoughts, dreams, numbs and poetry. She was made of somewhere else, of journeys without a destination and she lived in the lightness and detachment. When someone was believing to have conquered her, she was already gone, she was already somewhere else. She was one of those women who appeal and leave a sign because she loved to be free, scruffy and with the wind on her face. She lived as a wave of a stormy sea, as a white numb modelled and transported by the wind and in front of the boundaries, she breathes utopias, she always searched for new horizons. She lived of poetries, dislocations and enchantments”[58].

In fact, throughout her numerous works of creating writing, life’s experiences and “journeys of the soul”, in which she finds out an Elsewhere made of Eternity, Atwood sounds out and analyses apical topics in the aphorisms for which she’s acknowledged and globally appreciated: love for beauty and its perception, for the diversity and for the portraits of the shades of human soul, intended as a meeting point and salacious search for her own complex and divided self.

In this article, the main traits of Atwood’s minute lexical choices and the issue of duality recurrent in all writings are stressed and analysed, through quotations and references to her engaging and never taken for granted works that emphasize her ability to “voice the soul” taking inspiration from the daily reality with a forward-looking and visionary perspective of historical facts that occur in our post-modern society.

Atwood’s style secret resides in her extraordinary skill to catalyze attention with details and emotional strength. Anything is neglected: each word, each pause and each silence has a precise aim. Her creativity captures the reader, who is enticed and suspended, until he gets to open endings that entrust their ability to interpret and to reach their conclusions. The reader, in fact, is invited to wonder himself and reflect on burning aspects of socio-political matters, other than on the polyhedric, and never completely outframed, facets both of the psyche and human soul.

Therefore, her ductile and original narration doesn’t represent just a stylistic composition. This poem is an act of denunciation and encourages the psycho-social analysis of the ambivalence characterizing our daily events, propelling a foresight and inventing thinking on the reader. Atwood doesn’t tell just a story, but she digs into it, revealing its raw, real, and material nerves.

Her pen goes straight to the heart of phenomena such as power games, the relation between men and women, freedom in all its aspects, feminism that has made her a lighthouse in the field of contemporary genre studies, dealing with issues such as dictatorial and religious oppression, and social justice. “Two-Headed Poems” isn’t just to entertain but also to upset. Atwood, in fact, doesn’t try to comfort the reader, but also to trouble him, as each plot is a “patchworking” that generates deep deductions and questions. These poems, as all her literary works, are rooted in a lucid observation of the present and let us glimpse the likely future aftermaths.

The most proper adjective to describe Atwood’s style is certainly “sharp”, as a direct and precise blade. There’s nothing superfluous in her text: each word is parsed and deeply calibrated to render an undiscussed emotional and intellectual impact. It hasn’t got any frills, evoking powerful images with few strokes. The location and atmosphere are not meticulously explored in detail, but only for essential traits, letting the reader open his mind.

In conclusion, in this article, more than a careful lexical and psychological analysis of the multilayered contents faced by Atwood in “Two-Headed Poems”, it’s added an overall description of its inherent sticking points contents contextualized in nowadays events in her main literary works, especially those remarking the relations between public and private events and between collective and personal memory, factors that influence the interrelation between past, present and future throughout and notwithstanding the run out of time, revealing her foresighting flare that reminds the proper attitudes of a prophet[59].

The current study looks at the rich language found in Margaret Atwood's Two-Headed Poems. Atwood's precise wording goes beyond style; it helps reshape reality. Each word, pause, and silence builds a carefully crafted poetic structure that encourages readers to find their own meanings. This connects with Coral Ann Howells' idea that Atwood transforms everyday experiences into ethical and political questions. Atwood's poetic language often conceals a complex network of symbols, ambiguities, and emotional conflicts. This creates open spaces for readers to explore unique viewpoints. In Two-Headed Poems, duality is not just a persistent theme but also the central point of Atwood's poetic vision. This paper argues that Atwood's poetry goes beyond artistic duty and takes on a significant ethical and political role. Two-Headed Poems should not be viewed simply as poetic experiments; they critique cultural systems that shape today's society. Themes like gender inequality, political oppression, religious extremism, environmental issues, and the fragility of personal freedom are present throughout her work. This interpretative approach closely connects to Atwood's portrayal of female subjectivity. Her characters represent contradictions, vulnerabilities, resilience, and moral complexities, reflecting the intricate psychological truths of real life. Therefore, Atwood's feminism does not rely on simple lines between victimhood and empowerment; it examines the nuanced ways through which identity is shaped and reshaped. Another key part of this study is the link between personal memory and shared history. Time, consisting of the past, present, and future, is presented in interconnected layers that simultaneously influence one another, creating a dynamic view of history. Atwood's literary success stems from her ability to blend precise language with deep philosophical insight. Her writing avoids unnecessary flourishes, focusing instead on clarity that uncovers the hidden cracks in everyday life. Margaret Atwood remains one of the most important voices in contemporary literature, since her poetry teaches readers how to interpret the world and be aware of the responsibilities of understanding it.

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[1] Atwood M., Poems, 1976-1986, Virago Press, 1992

[2] https://lyrics.az/index.php/gerardina-trovato/non-e-un-film/angeli-a-meta.html 1994

[3] Stains D., Margaret Atwood in her Canadian context, Cambridge University Press, 2021, p. 25; https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108626651.003

[4] Canale, Paola, Life’s blooms…Illustrations in poetry. The silent side of beauty, ”Fata Morgana”, Barnes and Noble editions, 2021

https://barnesandnoble/w/files/life-blooms-paola-canale/1140141010

[5] The Doors - Universal Mind Lyrics & Meaning; Schivelbush W., Tastes of Paradise: a social history of spices, stimulants and intoxicants, Vintage Books, 1992

[6] See, Canale Paola, https://sparklingmoonshine.blogspot.com

[7] Atwood M., Book of Lives - A memoir of sorts, Penguin Random House LLC, New York, 2025

[8] Galeone Salvatore, Margaret Atwood, “La scrittura è una voce che viaggia nel tempo, 2021; Margaret Atwood, “La scrittura è una voce che viaggia nel tempo”

[9] David Stains, Ibidem, p. 22

[10] Canale Paola, “Mirror” from Life's blooms. Illustrations in poetry…the silent side of beauty, Barnes and Noble editions, 2021; https://barnesandnoble.com/w/life-blooms-paola-canale/1140141010

[11] Atwood M., “Marrying the Hangman” in Poems 1976/1986, Virago Press, 1992, p. 17

[12] Weir Lorraine, Echo Poems, Canadian Literature, 1980, pp. 120-121

[13] Atwood M., “The double voice”, from The Journals of Susanne Moodie, OUP Canada, 1970

[14] Atwood M., Selected Poems II, 1976-1986, Hoepli, 1987

[15] Wood Gayle, On Margaret Atwood’s Selected Poems, The American Poetry Review, Vol. 8, No. 5, 1979, pp. 30-32

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27776274

[16] See Paola Canale, http://sparklingmoonshine.blogspot.com, Itinerary spirits, 2021, “Irreplaceable kindred soul, / familiar, sympathetic.../ who, like me, has known the tribulation, unforgetting the past instabilities,/ you will lead me offshore from this continent's appendix/ to let me go to the cadence of a new world./ Slowly I slip away from your strong hand, / to plunge with shy audacity in the crystal waters, trying to break the waves,/ warrior of life, for life! / hidden tornadoes, wombling in the mystery, we deserve some kind of solace. / Light and uncatchable, as a whispering whiff of wind, never absent, /throughout a summer Jamaican sultriness, / we are ambassadors, we mold new global perspectives,/ on the brink of a coastal tidal flooding, /over the red line borders of visions,/ that we must change,/ nobody but us has inferred that each problem keeps in itself the solution. / Shelter from a relentless fight, / you guide me towards an undangerous and bristly reef, / fortress of a moment, / with you I can find myself again, / before continuing to leave, careless of what has been, / forgetful of our local burdens, huge, for another voyage. / Now the sky is finally clear over me, / so distant, / all of us will be, anyhow, dragged away from here... / I soar beyond the natural scenery, not after all so much attractive, / I regenerate myself and reconnect / to dive again and to reach another strip of mainland. / I fancy to run, happy and free, / I glance a hammock suspended between two oaks / over which I lie down to restore myself from all my fatigues. / Now they seem so mild... / I can't feel the weariness anymore / lost in an intersideral space, / held by two doves with wings of an eagle, / strong enough to sustain in me the weight of the world, / in a rainfall of a multicolored rose petals, / that hangs me up to an infinite light blue / over everything. / I actually now the paradise: my "liquid Ottawa"!!!

[17] Coral Ann Lowells, The Canadian Companions to Margaret Atwood, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 176-177

[18] Lopez Rua Paula, The subjugation of women through lexical innovation in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Feminismo/38, 2021, pp. 23-51

[19] Atwood M., Poems 1976-1986, Virago Press, 1992, p.26

[20] Atwood Margaret, “The woman makes peace with her faulty heart” from Poems 1976- 1986, Virago Press, 1992, pp. 38/39

[21] Rubenstein Roberta, "SURFACING": MARGARET ATWOOD'S JOURNEY TO THE INTERIOR, Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, SPECIAL ISSUE: MODERN CANADIAN FICTION, 1976, p. 388; https://www.jstor.org/stable/26280240

[22] Carol P. Christ, Margaret Atwood: the surfacing of women’s spiritual quest and vision, Signs, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1976, pp. 316-330

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173450

[23] Ruben Roberta, Ibidem, pp. 387-399

[24] Ewell C. Barbara, The language of alienation in Margaret Atwood’s “Surfacing”, The Centennial Review, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1981, pp. 185-202

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23738844

[25] Atwood M., Book of lives: a memoir of sorts, Penguin Random House, 2025, p. 272

[26] Clark T. Meera, Margaret Atwood’s “Surfacing”: language, logic and the art of fiction, Modern Language Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1983, pp. 3-15

https://doi.org/10.2307/3194175; https://www.jstor.org/stable/319417

[27] Granofski Ronald, Fairy-tale morphology in Margaret Atwood’s “Surfacing”, Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1990, pp. 51-65, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24780545

[28] Hopkins Jerry, No One Here Gets Out Alive, Grand Central Publishing, 1980; Pirandello Luigi, Uno, nessuno, centomila, Bemporad, 1926

[29] Campbell P. Josie, The woman as hero in Margaret Atwood’s “Surfacing”, Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, Vol. 11, No. 3, Post-war Canadian Fiction, 1978, pp. 17-28; https://www.jstor.org/stable/24777164 ; Paola Canale, The language of creativity: lexical choices in Margaret Atwood’s writings, Barnes and Noble editions https://barnesandnoble.com/w/the-language-of-creativity-paola-canale/1149600390 , pp. 88-95

[30] Foster Wilson John, The poetry of Margaret Atwood, University of British Columbia Press, 1977

[31] Oates Joice Carol, On being a poet: a conversation with Margaret Atwood, 1978; https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/97/09/21/reviews/oates-poet.html

[32] The Doors - Indian Summer Lyrics | AZLyrics.com

[33] Atwood M., Burning Questions: Essays &Occasional Pieces 2004-2021, Random House USA, 2022

[34] Atwood M., Power Politics, House of Anansi Press, 1983

[35] Atwood M., The Testaments, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2020

[36] Mohr, Sandock, The Politics of Literature in Margaret Atwood works, Margaret Atwood Studies, vol. 17, 2024, pp. 54-61

[37] Blake William, Proverbs of Hell from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Oxford University Press, 1793; Schivelbusch Wolfgang, Tastes of Paradise, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1993

[38] Caselli Roberto, Jim Morrison, “Il poeta caduto sulla terra”, La storia del rock, Hoepli, 2020, pp.112-130; Fowlie, Wallace, Rimbaud and Jim Morrison: Il poeta come ribelle, Duke University Press, 1994

[39] Atwood M., Two-Headed Poems

[40] Atwood M., Poems 1976-1986, Virago Press, 1992, p. 33

[41] Atwood M., Poems 1976-1986, Virago Press, 1992, p. 27

[42] Atwood M., Poems 1976-1986, Virago Press, 1992, p. 28

[43] Two-Headed Poems by Margaret Atwood | Research Starters | EBSCO Research

[44] Atwood M., Poems 1976-1986, Virago Press, 1992, pp. 34-35

[45] Atwood M., Book of lives / a memoir of sorts Penguin Random House LLC, 2025,

[46] Atwood M., Poems, 1976-1986, Virago Poetry, 1992, p.26-29

[47] Explication of “True Stories” by: Margaret Atwood | twonames15

[48] Atwood M., Poems, 1976-1986, Virago Poetry, 1992, p.57

[49] Morrison James, The American Night: the writing of Jim Morrison, Viking, 1991

[50] Atwood M., Selected Poems, 1965-1975, Cengage Learning, 2023

[51] Atwood M., Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, House of Anansi Pr, 1972

[52]What is postmodern feminism? Your Civil Rights Guide, Youtube.com, Avril 17, 2025 ; Canale Paola, The language of creativity: lexical choices in Margaret Atwood’s writings, Barnes and Noble editions, 2026, pp. 92-94

https://barnesandnoble.com/w/the-language-of-creativity-paola-canale/1149600390

[53] For this purpose and a specific insight into gender issues, we could look with particular attention at the matriarchal society structured on Iroquois culture in Canada. See,Canale, Paola Eternal feminine: an inspirational source of democracy -An insight on the Iroquois culture in USA and Canada, Barnes and Noble Editions, 2021

https://barnesandnoble.com/w/eternal-feminine-an-inspirational-source-of-democracy-paola-canale/1140423175 ; ““Eternal Feminine” aims to give an illustration of an alternative societal model, deepening and contributing to spread out the knowledge of Iroquois culture and its political structure, focused on women's pivotal role in every aspects of life. In the words of Faust by Goethe: "The Eternal feminine attracts us to the highest". […] The myth in question has assumed many faces: the sanctity of a mother, the purity of a virgin, the fecundity of the earth and the womb, and this wording, "eternal feminine" has been coined by Goethe to point out the timeless, unchangeable essence of feminine appeal, highly appealing because of her presumed divine origin, body and soul healing and her spiritual powers; Goethe, Faust, Oscar Mondadori, 2016 (fist publication in 1832).

[54] Atwood M., Poems, 1976-1986, Virago Poetry, 1992, pp. 47-51

[55] Dostoevskij Fӫdor, The Idiot, Penguin Classics, 2004

[56] Canale Paola, Life's blooms. Illustrations in poetry…the silent side of beauty, Barnes and Noble, 2021, https://barnesandnoble.com/w/life-blooms-paola-canale/1140141010

[57] See more on Sgarbi Vittorio, Viaggio Sentimentale nell'Italia dei desideri, Bompiani editore, 2010 “In the infinity of beauty[…]let you drive by the sense of incompleteness that every voyage of yours […] should deal with, such and many are its wonderful crafts. Just the feeling of a constant beauty could be your guide through what you couldn't wish to see in a lifetime”

[58] Degas A., Donne come nuvole, 2017 (English translation);

https://ilgiardinodeilibri.it/autori/_agostino-degas.php

[59] See also, Gibran, Kahlil, Il profeta - Il Giardino del profeta – Il vagabondo, Oscar Mondadori, 2017

Watery reflections (to my beloved Roby)

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sun, 10 May 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Warm, liquid...watery eyes,

dark as mine,

like the sea in a summer night,

encircling a big blinding light,

mirror of the sparkling moonshine.

Sauvage as my red hair

and steady enough to balance my disconcerting intemperance,

balming my thrills,

fomenting my spine shiverings,

making me wet under the raging rain,

smelling as an afroidisiac saltiness,

bitter

as the harshness of a man.

Soundly voicing my heart,

beguiling and softly upsetting,

you can say everything apparently without hurting,

letting open thousands of questions

in the blurred remembrance after the smoky trance of the obnubilance of the encounter.

You cut off my liane

to which I don't know whether to hang myself

or by which to take the fly,

wandering in the wilderness,

in the numbness of the sky...

you dry my swelling dizziness

leaving me unearthed.

You quench the painful flames of my blood.

You get the roots that I don't get.

Caldi, liquidi...occhi acquatici,

bui come i miei,

come il mare in una notte estiva,

che attorniano una grande luce accecante,

specchio di un brillante chiarore lunare

Selvaggio come i miei capelli rossi

e stabile abbastanza per bilanciare la mia sconcertante intemperanza,

come un balsamo per le mie scosse,

fomentando i brividi del mio dorso,

bagnandomi sotto la pioggia imperversante,

profumando di una salsedine afrodisiaca,

amaro,

come la ruvidità di un uomo.

Musicalmente dando voce al mio cuore,

avvolgendo e dolcemente sconvolgendo,

puoi dire tutto senza apparentemente ferire,

lasciando aperte migliaia di domande

in un offuscato ricordo

dopo il nebbioso trance del magico obnubilamento dei nostri incontri.

Tu tagli la mia liana,

a cui non so se impiccarmi

o da cui prendere il volo,

per vagare nella selvaticità,

nella vacuità del cielo.

Asciughi il mio gonfio stordimento

lasciandomi sterrata.

Spegni le dolorose fiamme del mio sangue.

Tu hai le radici che io non ho.

A sun-kissed Greece

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 09:03:00 +0000

Maybe I'll jerk off myself anyway,

as I love me more than myself,

and I love you more than myself.

At the same time.

In something than goes further...

beyond us...

without any boundaries and controls

in something mystical and uncatchable...

in an indefinite dimension...

maybe a dream

that pushes us strongly to an inevitable sex encounter.

I wish you.

More than words can say.

A hot August sun-kissed Greece.

Sultry enough.

Wild honey, you hurt me...

Immortality/ Immortalità

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:46:00 +0000

Immortality/ Immortalità

Sedersi e aspettare

in una stasi

per reinventare se stessi.

il dolore esistenziale ci attraversa aspettando Godot...

in un'atemporale panchina delle meraviglie,

verdeggiante,

rigogliosa,

dal fascino evanescente,

come i contorni della nostra psiche

e delle nostre labili emozioni,

a sedimentare ricordi

nell'indifferenza di un'inadeguata macchina del tempo,

lasciando vivida una malinconica immaginazione

confusa e arguta,

inconscia.

Un non vivere,

forse più entusiasmante di questa vita,

in un caleidoscopio di luci, ombre, colori, sfumature,

che impari a guardare, osservare, chiedendoti perchè...

il perchè dell'esistenza.

Balenano tutte d'un fiato

nella tua meditazione assorta,

senza sapere se ripartire,

cosi lontani da se stessi,

sapendo che forse non hai mai vissuto più di così,

pert continuare a errare vagabondo senza senso,

tuffandoci nell'incertezza,

perdendosi tra dentro e fuori,

tra vivere e morire,

sapendo che forse è lo stesso...

il destino dello spirito,

fino a cancellare il potere delle parole,

in ogni lingua,

perchè ne esiste una più intima

che non conosce alcun dizionario o grammatica

ma parla dal profondo del cuore.

Parametri?Speciali!

Universali.

Silenziosi.

Senza bisogno di alcuna traduzione

or concretizzazione nella materialità di un taccuino.

Qualcosa instillato da affinità chimiche.

Empatia.

Infinitamente oltre...

Scrivo troppo!

Scrivo...

Odio la pubblicità!

Questo è un semplice diario..

Un autobiografia...

Se io avessi mai avuto una vita, in questo mondo...

Forse in qualche altro.

Sitting down and keeping on waiting

in a standstill

to reinvent ourselves.

The spleen passes us through waiting for Godot,

in an timeless bench of wonders,

verdant,

lush,

with an evanescent fascination,

as the boundaries of our psyche

and of our feeble emotions,

to sediment memories

in the indifference of an inadequate time machine,

vividly leaving a melancholic imagination

confused and sharp,

unconscious.

A not living,

maybe more enthusiastic of this life-style,

in a kaleidoscope of lights, shadows, colours, shades,

that you learn to watch it, to observe it, wondering why...

what's the meaning of the existence.

Each one flashes up all at once

in a profound meditation,

even not knowing if takng off again,

so far away from ourselves,

aware of not having lived more than this,

and to wander errant with no sense

jumping in the uncertainty,

losing ourselves between the inside and the outside,

between living and dying,

well knowing that maybe it's the same...

the destiny of the spirit.

until deleting the power of words,

in every language,

because there's a more intimate one

that knows no dictionnaries or grammars

but speaks deeply from the heart.

Parameters?special ones.

universal.

Silent.

with no needs of translations

or concretization in the materiality of a notepad.

Something instilled by chemical affinities.

Empathy,

infinitively beyond...

I write too much!

I write...

I hate advertising!

This is a simple diary..

An autobiography...

If I've ever had a life, in this world...

Maybe in some other.

Proto-feminist perspectives in Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 03:12:00 +0000

The Handmaid’s Tale is Margaret Atwood dystopian novel masterpiece. It is an explicitly political novel that emerges from long traditions of anti-utopian or dystopian fictions emerging in this century both in literature and politics. Specifically, Atwood joins the ranks of the one of the most popular writers of feminist utopias and dystopias[1]. Issued in 1986, this book sounds out themes such as reproductive rights, female subjugation, oppressive regimes and erosion of individual freedoms in a theocratic future society. Set in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she intended it as a work of speculative, not science fiction.

“The Handmaid’s Tale was written partly on a rented electric typewriter with a German keyboard in a walk-up flat in West Berlin, which was encircled by the Berlin Wall and a Soviet Empire’s spin dictatorship was still strongly in place, partly in a small house in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that is the per capita murder capital of the U.S. […] This conned some people into believing it’s science fiction, which was not in my mind”[2]. She defines this last as a fiction in which things happen that still couldn’t be realistic at the time and in the context she wrote, such as, for instance, advanced space travel, time travel, the discovery of green monsters on other galaxies, or that contain various technologies we have not yet developed, but she points out that in this novel, nothing happens that the humankind hasn’t already done at some point in the past, or that is not doing now maybe in other countries, or for which technology has not yet enough developed. Nothing inconceivable occurs, projecting trends already in motion in the future. That’s why the author’s interpretation is a properly said speculative, not science fiction.

The Handmaid’s Tale has been translated in forty or more languages. It has sold more than 8 million copies internationally, whose more than 3 million since the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It is frequently featured on high schools and university curricula. It won the 1986 Governor General's Literary Award for English language fiction and the 1987 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Literature. It was also nominated for other prominent awards, including the 1986 Booker Prize, the 1986 Nebula Award and the 1987 Prometheus Award. This novel was adapted into a film, an opera, a ballet, a graphic novel, and several television series[3].

Its main narrative consists of a transcription of tapes made out by Offred, that recorded her experience growing up in the old society, of her process of indoctrination into the new one and of her experience as a handmaid of one of Gilead’s Commanders.

Atwood explains that all fictions begin with a What if…? The What if? varies from book to book and this is a question to which the novel is the answer. The what if for The Handmaid’s Tale could be formulated: What if it can happen here?

What if you wanted to take over the U.S. and set up a totalitarian government, the longing for power being what it is? What conditions would favor you, and what slogan would you propose, what flag would you fly that would attract the necessary 20% of the population, without which no totalitarianism can stay in power? If it’s advanced the option of communism, you’d be unlikely to get many takers. A dominance of erstwhile liberal democrats would be discerned even by the slightly dull-witted as a contradiction in terms. Although many doubtful actions usually done in secret or with a good deal of verbal embroidery covering them up have been committed, we can deal with them, for the sake of the great god democracy. In the U.S., you’d be more likely to try some version of Puritan Fatherhood if you wanted a takeover. As a matter of fact, true dictatorships don’t come in in good times but in bad times, when people are eager to give out their freedoms to anyone who can take control and pledge to better times. The bad times that made Hitler and Mussolini takeover possible were economic, with some extra frills such as a shortage of men in proportion to women, due to the high death rates during WWI. To put into place this future society, she proposed something a little more complex and multifaceted: bad economic times due to a shrinking area of global control, which would mean dropping down markets and fewer sources of cheap raw materials; but also a period of environmental catastrophe, which would have several aftermaths: a higher infertility and sterility rate due to a chemical and radiation damage and a higher birth rate. As a result, Atwood proposed an hypothetical future society, subject to biblical sanctions, which assigns more than one woman to its favored male members.

“There is nothing in the book without a precedent but this material in itself would not represent a novel. A novel is always the story of an individual, or several individuals; never the story of an individual, never the story of a generalized mass. So, the real problems in writing The Handmaid’s Tale were the same as the promises involved in the writing of any novel: how to make the story real at a human and individual level. The pitfalls that Utopian writing so frequently stumbles into the pitfalls of disquisition. The author gets too enthusiastic about sewage systems or conveyor belts, and the story grinds to halt while the beauties of these are explained. She wanted the factual and logical background to her tale to remain background and she didn’t want it usurping the foreground”.

Looking at verbal hygiene practices in The Handmaid’s Tale in relation to the issue of authority, discussing the question of power underlying linguistic conventions, the social function of linguistic rules is not arbitrary. Like other customs, conventions, traditions, the use of language often contributes to a circle of exclusion and intimidation, as those who have mastered a particular practice in using it to intimidate others. Commentators on literary dystopias have remarked that language is often shown as a means by which social control is communicated and exerted. Atwood’s novel exposes forms of linguistic authority constructed upon a gender hierarchy which has an extremely clear social agenda: the maintenance of an order based on the suppression of women’s voice and desires.

Following “the reduction of women” convention observed in feminist dystopian writing, this fiction depicts a futuristic space in which women’s social roles have been dominated and limited by a patriarchal order. Specifically, referring to the plot, it is represented by the Republic of Gilead, a fundamentalist state established after a takeover by an extremist right-wing élite, as a backlash against the revolutionary feminist movements development of the previous decades.

The Handmaid’s Tale is composed of two narrative blocks. The first part consists of Offred’s description, in diary form, of her experience as a handmaid under the oppressive regime. This is a transcription of recordings found by historians after the fall of Gilead, and it’s divided in fifteen chapters alternating reconstruction rendering readings of the daily life and routine as a handmaid and, in the “Night” chapters, her thoughts and recollections, dreams and nightmares. The “Historical notes” that form the second block contain the proceedings of a conference in Gilead Studies. The time gap between the two parts is approximately two hundred years. The notes are formed mainly by the Professor Darcy Pieixoto’s paper on the manuscript of the first block. While in the two blocks narration is constructed intradiegetically, together they also form a third external extradiegetic level, to which we are the addresses. This distinction can be put in terms of “public” and “private” levels of narration.

Atwood’s Tale shows that the subjugation of women in Gilead, which is political, economical and kept alive by the use of force, is also linguistically affected. The gender-polarized power imbalance is expressed in a Offred’s meditation, which encapsulates the inner essence of this linguistic economy: ”He has something we don’t have: he has the word. How we squandered it, at once”. Men have “the word”; women do not. “The word is singular, monolithic and biblical because originated by God. Women linguistic circumstances are of legally enforced scarcity. Openly gender-based, verbal hygiene works at institutional levels to keep male hegemony. Several passages stress the power politics invested in linguistic control. Reading and writing are forbidden for women; writing on tickets and notice boards is replaced by pictures; books and other reading materials are banned. Women are brutally silenced and, among the Handmaids, a clichéd form of communication based on the scriptural texts, imposed, impelling women’s amputated speech and prohibited access to written language in Gilead regime.

The figuration of enforced uses of language as a means of social control and manipulation appears as a pervasive trait in the literary dystopias and, in detail, this feminist dystopia clearly explains gender ideologies, underlying linguistic contestations, and illustrating the sexually polarised linguistic economy in Gilead.

The Handmaid’s Tale in itself is an act of resistance and it moves in countertrend against the dominant mentality. In Offred’s narration frames, verbal hygiene is imposed upon her in such a way as to enable her own authorial voice to be inscribed. This act of resistance is also unveiled by the narrator careful, conscious and precise choices of language. The handmaid’s narration materializes a feminist utopia of language characterized by creativity and plurivocality, presented against the backdrop of the linguistic ‘utopia’ of static, monolithic meaning necessary for the existence of Gilead. Some linguistic transgressions are ‘visible’, i.e., readers can actually ‘see’ them as elements in the contents of the story plot. However, most of the transgressions are not ‘seen’ but expressed in Offred's reconstructed storytelling. In the mental operations which acquire narrative shape post factum the contrast between the rhetorical richness of her heresies and the barrenness of Gileadean dogmas is mirrored by the ineffectiveness of the acts of verbal hygiene imposed upon her. To combat monolithic meaning, Offred composes what she defines ‘litanies’, speculations exploring the polysemy of lexical elements: “I sit in the chair and think about the word chair. It can also mean a mode of execution. In the first syllable in charity. It’s the French word for flesh. None of these facts has any connection with the other. There are the kind of litanies I use, to compose myself”. In addition to lexical items, longer pieces of language text acquire various meanings, as in the case of the Latin inscription the handmaid’s finds scratched in her cupboard. Another device that defies Gileadean monolithism is the exposure of its constructedness and incompletedness. Offred “squanders” the Gileadean “word” and becomes a verbal hygienist herself by rejecting the linguistic normativity which “contributes to a circle of exclusion and intimidation” of women and critically restoring linguistic freedom. Implicit in Offred's speech are the counter-ideologies of her radical utopian orientation, in opposition to Gilead’s own conservative utopia. Despite the limited political impact of her narrative effort, Offred contested the linguistic tyranny of Gilead and inscribes ‘speaks” her own authority in, over and through the language. The narrative levels allow an understanding of the conflicted authority at stake in verbal hygiene practices and counter-practices, and of the limitations and partiality of such practices.

The Historical Notes of The Handmaid’s Tale present a set of meta-linguistic practices that could be figured out in relation to the concept of verbal hygiene. Linguistic control perceptible at this level parallels the mouth-shutting of women in Gilead, and works as a metaphorical manifestation of forms and shades of appropriation of a feminist discourse in a sexist environment. Verbal hygiene is grounded, in fact, on the “fetish of communication”, for human communication depends on a language functioning with fixed codes that guarantee the transparency of the messages between people, so that the linguistic form breaks the rules of a good communication generating anxiety and triggering specific reactions.

The ‘Historical Notes’ trouble the reception of the radical speech and raise readers’ consciousness concerning the ideological debates informing linguistic contestations. In one of the ‘Night’ passages, Offred speculates: “ What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangements of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise, there are only two dimensions.” This excerpt stressed the handmaid’s analytical stance, while offering a metafictional commentary on textual construction and the readers’ feedback. One way to add perspective to our reading is by analysing the ‘third text’, that’s to say the novel as a whole, understood in the sense that the two narrative blocks, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and the ‘Historical Notes’, yield a third that evidenced the relations between narrators, author and readers. Atwood's structural choices play a crucial role in forging the individual readers’ psychological discussion and let’s envision her socio-political and feminist overview. The stylistic choices that influence the readers’ response to the instances of verbal hygiene in the novel include the title, the order in which the narrative blocks are presented and the narrative perspective. Lacking the rhetorical sophistication and emotional appeal of the handmaid’s personal account, the latter consists of a collection of gross misinterpretations, misogynistic asides and jokes, and flares of academic vanity and false modesty delivered to a passive audience. All this is rendered in a kind of prose that, by being punctuated by worn-out expressions and the editorial ‘we’, resounds stereotyped to academic readers, raising up the distance between Pieixoto and his audience and conveying an authoritarian attitude. Finally, Atwood’s satirical parody of the academy is also reflected in the choice of terms for the conference venue (drawn from Inuit vocabulary, “University of Denay, Nunavit” echoes ‘deny none of it’).

The story plot is gender-polarized, involving conflicted linguistic authority. The novel points out the remarkability and the intertwined levels of mediation of the cultural strategy of verbal hygiene. The ‘third text’ makes the parody of the historian’s narration more evident and restores the feminist significance deleted by the academics. This version of the feminist “elsewhere” carries out the contradictions between a woman’s declaration of her desire and the dystopic outframes which ignite and surround it.

The language is so crucial for dystopias that we are justified to label it as an overarching structural element in the construction of narrative plot, being often, not always, an x-factor. Dystopias are also stories about language and, more specifically, of metalanguage. In feminist dystopias, the linguistic practices are linked to the gender battle of domination, in which language is just an instrument of enforcement of the dystopic order. This fiction revolves around the liberating potential of language by showing women who resist male dominance tightening them. The gender-polarized versions of verbal hygiene observed in this narrative reveal culturally embedded assumptions inclined to change the status quo, as well as the visions of utopia underlying them.

Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale renders utopias ‘of’ language because of its feminist approach in the sense of the construction of a women’s language and of a woman’s act of storytelling. These fictions, in fact, consist of “of” and “off” dystopian language. Similarly to the paradox embedded inside the “utopia” definition, the elusive figures of the feminist “good place” portrayed in them exist in the “no place” of narrative which exceeds the possibility of being encoded in language[4].

Let’s have a look now at the Handmaid’s Tale plot synopsis and related lexicography: the dystopian novel is narrated by the main character, Offred, in swinging descriptions of her present life and expository sections in which she recalls her past.

Offred narrates at the end of the novel:

“I’m sorry it’s in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart by force. But there is nothing I can do to change it. I’ve tried to put some of the good things in as well. Flowers, for instance, because where would we be without them? Nevertheless it hurts me to tell it over, over again. Once was enough for me at the time? But I keep on going with this sad and hungry and sordid, this limping and mutilated story because after all I want you to hear yours too if I ever get the chance, in the future or in heaven or in prison or underground, some other place. What they have in common is that they’re not here. By telling you anything at all I’m at least believing in you. I believe you’re there. I believe you into being. Because I’m telling you this story I will your existence. I tell therefore you are. So, I will go on. So, I will myself to go on. I am coming to a part you will not like at all, because in it I didn’t behave well, but I will try nonetheless to have nothing out. After all you’ve been through, you deserve whatever I have left, which is not much but includes the truth.”[5]

In this passage, she addresses herself to the narratees, prompting the readers into a sympathetic, interactive response (‘I want you to hear yours too’) and identification with the ‘you’. The repetition of ‘believe’, ‘tell’ and ‘you’ adds rhetorical strength to the excerpt and heightens the readers’ effective response. The passage also conveys the utopian desire for ‘some other place’ where a better form of human interaction will be possible. The utopian impulse is marked by a desire for a space where narrative can flow and linguistic exchange exist outside the constraints of the dystopic space of Gilead[6].

Offred recollections reveal that she was the daughter of a feminist activist who had chosen to be a single mother. Before the advent of the theocratic government, the protagonist attended the University and she had a close friend named Moira. Offred became involved with a married man, Luke, and eventually she and Luke wed and had a daughter. Following a military coup in which the president and most members of the Congress were killed, the country became the Republic of Gilead[7].

The regime rearranged the societal class order on the basis of a quirky interpretation of some Old Testament doctrines. One of the most significant changes is the limitation of women's rights: women become the lowest-ranking class and they are not allowed to own money or property, to read and write, and are deprived of control over their reproductive functions.

One day, Offred was fired from her job at the library because women were no longer permitted to work. That evening, she learned that women were not even allowed to have money, and her bank account had been transferred to Luke. Eventually, Offred, along with Luke and their five-year-old daughter tried to flee to Canada with forged passports but they were caught, and she, considered a criminal for being an adulterer married with a divorced man, was sent to the Rachel and Bilhah re-education center. Her marriage was forcibly dissolved, and her daughter was taken from her. Instead of being sentenced under the Republic of Gilead's draconian criminal justice system, Offred accepted training to become a "Handmaid", an alternative available only to fertile women. In facts, environmental pollution and radiation have drastically affected fertility and she was one of the few remaining women who can conceive. She has been assigned to produce children for the “Commanders”, the ruling classes of men.

On their turn, in Gilead theocracy, women are classified as following: the chaste childless Wives of the Commanders; the housekeeping Marthas; and the reproductive Handmaids, who turn their offspring over the Wives and are called by the names of their assigned Commanders. Ranked under the Commanders are the Guardians, who have police powers, and the society is permeated with government spies called Eyes. Those who cannot conform are sent to the Colonies, and people of color (Children of Ham) are resettled. Offred begins her third assignment as a Handmaid, having been unsuccessful in her previous two. Women wear particular uniforms, ranked highest to lowest: the Commanders' Wives in sky blue, their unmarried daughters in white, the Handmaids in red with highly visible large white bonnets, the Aunts (who train and indoctrinate the Handmaids) in brown, the Marthas (cooks and maids, possibly unmarried sterile women past child-bearing years) in green, Econowives (the wives of lower-ranking men who handle everything in the domestic sphere) in blue, red and green stripes, and widows in black.

Fred is Offred’s Commander (her name means “of Fred”) and his Wife is Serena Joy, a former singer on a televangelist program. Offred is required to go grocery shopping in the company of the neighboring handmaid, Ofglen. As they come back, they pass the Wall, where the bodies of executed prisoners are displayed. One day, Offred notices a phrase carved into the closet floor: “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum”. On Offred’s monthly visit to the doctor, he suggests that the Commander may be sterile and such a thing was not accepted in the regime and that he could impregnate her. Frightened, she declines. At home, she’s required to attend the Ceremony, ritualized rape conducted during the Handmaid’s likely fertile period each month: after the Commander reads the Bible to the household, Offred must lie between Serena Joy’s legs while Serena clasps her hands as the Commander has sex with her.

“My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for.”[8]

This practice had roots on Chapter 30 of the Genesis: Rachel offers her handmaid, Bilhah, to her husband Jacob, because she’s unable to conceive children.

As Offred is unable to become pregnant, the Commander’s Wife, Serena Joy, suggests that Offred secretly sleep with their gardener and chauffer Nick. She hopes to cloak Nick’s child as The Commander’s. Offred and Nick begin a highly illegal affair, swamped in shadowy motives.

Later that night, the protagonist sneaks downstairs, hoping to steal a flower, and finds Nick, who tells her that her Commander asked her to go to his office the following night. When one of the Handmaids gives birth, all the other Handmaids attend her; a complex ritual showing that the baby really belongs to a Wife accompanies the birth process. When Offred presents herself in the Commander’s office, she’s surprised to find that he wishes to play Scrabble, even though women are forbidden to read. The nighttime meetings continue, and Offred finds the monthly Ceremony uncomfortable now that she has a personal relationship with the Commander.

One day Ofglen reveals to Offred that she’s a member of an underground resistance movement. From the Commander, Offred learns that the phrase on the closet floor means “Don’t let the bastards grind you down” and that the Handmaid who carved it had hanged herself after Serena Joy learned of her secret liaisons with the Commander.

“On the Wall hang three women from this morning […] ’let that be a reminder to us’, says the new Ofglen finally. I say nothing at first, because I am trying to make out what she means. She could mean that this is a reminder to us of the unjustness and brutality of the regime. In that case I ought to say yes. Or she could mean the opposite, that we should remember to do what we are told and not get into trouble, because if we do we will be rightfully punished. If she means that, I should say praise be…she isn’t one of us. But she knows. [...] ‘Under the Eye’ says the new, treacherous Ofglen. ‘Under the Eye’ I say, trying to sound fervent. As it such play-acting could help, now that we’ve come this far. […] ‘She hanged herself’ she says. ‘After the Salvaging. She saw the van coming for her. It was better.’[9]

From these passages are highlighted the oppressive rules of the suspicious regime to which many women are subjugated throughout continuous brainwashing, consisting in and provoked by strict and misunderstood religious dogmas based on the Bible and the overall existing distrust against potential dissidents. They show how, altogether raped women, in the body and in the spirit, consent to this sneaky political system to which themselves are victims. In fact, the punishment for treason was the Salvaging for female transgressors and the Particicution for dissident men. In this fiction, showing her masterclass in statesmanship studies, Atwood gives an unparalleled literary contribution against raging totalitarianisms, making this topic an evergreen classic also nowadays.

“The sun comes out, and the stage and its occupants light up like a Christmas crèche (French calque) […] The three bodies hang there, even with the white sacks over their heads looking curiously stretched, like chickens strung up by the necks in a meatshop window; like birds with their wings clipped, like flightless birds, wrecked angels.”

In this excerpt is blatant the use of poetic metaphors highlighting the upsetting drama they live in and the author prowess to focus on the contrast of similar scenes derived from the laws of nature and the racked demise of the outsiders of the theocratic regime other than the deep sorrow feelings of the narrator and the others attendants in front of the brutal awkward aftermaths of the rebels against the biblical dogmas.

“ A sigh goes up from us; despite myself I feel my hands clench. It’s too much, this violation. The baby too, after what we go through. It’s true, there is a bloodlust; I want to tear, gouge, rend. We jostle forward, our heads turn from side to side, our nostrils flare, sniffing death, we look at one another, seeing the hatred. Shooting was too good. The man’s head swivels groggily around.”[10]

Weeks later, Serena Joy dangerously arranges for Offred to have sex with Nick in hopes that Offred will conceive; after that assignation, she and Nick continue with an affair.

“I reach the top of the stairs, knock on the door. He opens it himself. There’s a lamp on; I blink. I look past his eyes, it’s a single room, the bed’s made up, stripped down, military. No pictures but the blanket says U.S. He’s in his shirt sleeves, he’s holding a cigarette. “Here”, he says to me, “have a drag”. No preliminaries, he knows why I’m here. To get knocked up, to get in trouble, up the pole, those were all names for it once. I take the cigarette from him, draw deeply in, hand it back. Our fingers hardly touch. Even that much smoke makes me dizzy. He says nothing, just look at me, unsmiling. It would be better, more friendly, if he would touch me. I feel stupid and ugly, although I know I am not either. Still, what does he think, why doesn’t he say something? maybe he thinks I’ve been slutting around, at Jezebel’s, with the Commander or more. It annoys me that I’m even worrying about what he thinks. Let’s be practical. ‘ I don’t have much time’, I say. This is awkward and clumsy, it isn’t what I mean. ‘ I could just squirt it into a bottle and you could pour it in, ’he says. He doesn’t smile. ‘There’s no need to be brutal,’ I say. Possibly he feels used. Possibly he wants something from me, some emotion, some acknowledgment that he too is human, is more than just a seedpod. ‘I know it’s hard for you’ I try. He shrugs. ‘I get paid’ he says, punk surliness. But still makes no move. I get paid you get laid, I rhyme in my head. So that’s how we’re going to do it. He didn’t like the make-up, the spangles. We’re going to be rough. ‘you come here often?’ ‘ and what’s a nice girl like me doing in a spot like this,’ I reply. We both smile: this is better. This is an acknowledgment that we are acting, for what else can we do in such a setup? ‘Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder’ we’re quoting from late movies, from the time before. And the movies then were from a time before that: this sort of talk dates back to an era well before our own. Not even my mother talked like that, not when I knew her. Possibly nobody ever talked like that in real life, it was all a fabrication from the beginning. Still, it’s amazing how easily it comes back to mind, this corny and falsely gay sexual banter. I can see now what it’s for, what it was always for: to keep the core of yourself out of reach, enclosed, protected. I’m sad now, the way we’re talking is infinitely sad: faded music, faded paper flowers, worn satin, an echo of an echo. All gone away, no longer possible. Without warning I begin to cry. At last he moves forward, puts his arms around me, strokes my back, holds me that way, for comfort. ‘Come on’ he says ‘we haven’t got much time’. With his arm around my shoulders he leads me over to the fold-out bed, lays me down. He even turns down the blanket first. He begins to unbutton, then to stroke, kisses beside my ear. ‘No romance’ he says ‘okay? That would have meant: no strings. Now it means: no heroics. It means: don’t risk yourself for me, if it should come to that. And so it goes. And so. I knew it may only be once. Good-by (archaism), I thought, even at that time, good-by. There wasn’t any thunder though, I added that in. to cover up the sounds, which I am ashamed of making.[…]I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless[11]. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was. […] I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, then at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia. I wish it had more shape. I wish it were about love, or about sudden realizations important to one’s life, or even about sunsets, birds, rainstorms, or snow.”[12]

After their initial sexual encounter, Offred and Nick begin to meet on their own initiative as well; Serena Joy discovers that she enjoys these intimate moments despite memories of her husband, and shares potentially dangerous information about her past with him. Offred later tells Nick that she thinks she is pregnant.

One night the Commander, attempting to be tantalizing, requires the blindsided and baffled Offred to don a sexy costume and takes her to a covert, government-run brothel, where Offred sees emotionally broken Moira working as a prostitute, using Jezebels, women forced to become prostitutes and entertainers. Jezebels are available only to the Commanders and to their guests. Offred portrays them as attractive and educated; they may be unsuitable as Handmaids due to temperament and sterilized. They operate in unofficial but state-sanctioned brothels, unknown to most women. Jezebels, whose title comes from Jezebel in the Bible, dress in the remnants of sexualized costumes from "the time before", such as cheerleaders' costumes, school uniforms, and Playboy Bunny costumes. They can wear make-up, drink alcohol and socialize with men, but are tightly controlled by the Aunts. When they pass their sexual prime or their looks fade, they are discarded without any precision as to whether they are killed or sent to the Colonies.

Interesting on this Commander gift to Offred is the author’s detailed description of the bestowed nightclub dress,[13] other than Offred recalls:

“He’s holding a handful of feathers, mauve and pink […] It’s a garment, apparently, and for a woman: there are the cups for breasts, covered in purple sequins. The sequins are tiny stars. The feathers are around the thigh holes, and along the top. So, I wasn’t that wrong about the girdle, after all. I wonder where he found it. All such clothing was supposed to have been destroyed. I remember seeing that on television, in news clips filmed in one city after another. In New York it was called the Manhattan Cleanup. There were bonfires in Times Square, crowds chanting around them, women throwing their arms up thankfully into the air when they felt the cameras on them, clean-cut stony-faced young men tossing things onto the flames, armfuls of silk and nylon and fake fur, lime-green, red, violet; black satin, gold lamé, glittering silver; bikini underpants, see-through brassieres with pink satin hearts sewn to cover the nipples.”[14]

Furthermore, it’s astonishing the seemingly realistic insight of the club, the overall scenery and sex-workers, as you can touch and live very vivid images, and the hidden juvenile perversion and transpassing pulse of the Commander:

“He retains hold of my arm, and as he talks his spine straightens imperceptibly, his chest expands, his voice assumes more and more the sprightliness and jocularity of youth. It occurs to me he is showing off. […] He’s demonstrating to me, his mastery of the world. He’s breaking the rules, under their noses, thumbing his nose at them, getting away with it. Perhaps he’s reached that state of intoxication which power is set to inspire, the state in which you believe you are indispensable and can therefore do anything, absolutely anything you feel like, anything at all […]“ Then I see her. Moira. […] She’s dressed absurdly, in a black outfit of once-shiny satin that looks the worse for wear. It’s strapless, wired from the inside, pushing up the breasts, but it doesn’t quite fit Moira, it’s too large, so that one breast is plumped out and the other one isn’t. She’s tugging absent-mindedly at the top, pulling it up. There’s a wad of cotton attached to the back, I can see it as she half turns; it looks like a sanitary pad that’s been like a piece of popcorn. I realize that it’s supposed to be a tail. Attached to her head are two ears, of a rabbit or deer, it’s not easy to tell; one of the ears has lost its starch or wiring and is flopping halfway down. She has a black bow tie around her neck and is wearing black net stockings and black high heels. She always hated high heels. The whole costume, antique and bizarre, reminds me of something from the past, but I can’t think what. A stage play, a musical comedy? Girls dressed for Easter, in rabbit suits. What is the significance of it here, why are rabbits supposed to be sexually attractive to men? How can this bedraggled costume appeal? Moira is smoking a cigarette. She takes a drag, passes it to the woman on her left, who’s in red spangles with a long pointed tail attached, and silver horns; a devil outfit. Now she has her arms folded across her front, under her wired-up breasts. She stands on one foot, then the other, her feet must hurt; her spine sags slightly. She gazes without interest or speculation around the room. This must be familiar scenery.”[…] “You can’t cheat Nature – he says- Nature demands variety, for men. It stands to reason, it’s part of the procreational strategy. It’s Nature’s plan. […] Women know that instinctively. Why did they buy so many different clothes, in the old days? to trick the men into thinking they were several different women. A new one each day.” ”So now that we don’t have different clothes – I say- you merely have different women. This is irony, but he doesn’t acknowledge it.”[15]

By these words comes up the contrast between the proclaimed support of women’s rights by the author, deeply sounding out the inner psychology and emotions, exploring them as they truly are, and the bold masculinity in patriarchal societies. An evergreen topic.

In the club you could meet women from every walk of life: “Well, we have quite a collection. That one there, the one in green, she’s sociologist. Or was. That one was a lawyer, that one was in business, an executive position; some sort of fast-food chain or maybe it was hotels”, facing the dilemma between morality and disinhibition not only in this kind of work environment and context but also generally speaking, propelling readers' questions and reflections even nowadays. Is it just a narcissistic ostentation of femininity in dark times? just a showbiz like another or a kind of feminine ransom or pride, or, instead, another sort of slavery, of subjugation to male pleasure or lush?

So, the issue of integrity comes up several times, such as, i.e., Serena Joy suggestion to Offred to have sex with Nick, both for breeding children and for jealousy, or the transgression of a so-called obeyance to Bible and religious dogmas by going to nightclubs; or again it must be stressed the difference between art and beauty characterizing these venues, and prostitution in a male dominant dystopic patriarchalism.

Proceeding with the narration, in the Gilead’s Republic, all the women are stranded off in a system in which they are required to attend a savage gruesome and grisly public execution, and Ofglen tells Offred that one of those killed was a member of the Mayday resistance. The next shopping day, a different Handmaid identifies herself as Ofglen: the new Ofglen tells Offred that the old one hanged herself before she could be arrested.

Advancing with the story plot, when Offred returns home, she finds that Serena Joy has discovered the costume that she wore to the sex club. A van of the Eyes comes to arrest Offred, but Nick tells her that the Eyes are really resistance fighters. The danger of this situation pushes Offred to escape The Commander’s household, thanks to Nick’s help. Whether she is fleeing towards her freedom or her death is unclear.

“And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light”[16]

Although this end gives us no resolution, it evokes the space of and off narration: ‘of’ narration because it is where Offred voice comes from; ‘off’ narration because it is absent from the novelistic text. Such a space, where a woman’s storytelling is not only possible, but free from the male dystopic orders which constrain it, conveys the utopian paradox in the sense that the feminist ‘good’ place of linguistic freedom is also the narrative ‘no’ place.

Because of her professional deformation as a University professor, teaching lessons in a critical way, she leaves open-ended conclusions that don’t close the matter and that make room to the reflections of readers about the thorny, disturbing, scorching and at the same time eviscerated, dissected topics she proposed. Her personal lexicography is marked by an anti-minimalistic prose, a rich, graceful and eccentric language other than by a lyrical, scratching, sinuous, colloquial style, straight to the point and creative with her puns and fantasy, invented words.

Eventually, the epilogue makes clear that the events of the story, found on tape cassettes, are being discussed as part of a symposium on Gilean Studies in 2195 and hints that a more equitable society followed the Gileadean theocracy. The novel epilogue takes place in 2195, when a historical congress is discussing the events of the “Gilean period”. Margaret Atwood’s novel was inspired by social and political trends of the 1980s.

Offred speaks words out in a disembodied voice. She frequently expresses herself by using punning and wordplay — hallmarks of Atwood’s narrators. Anyhow, Offred’s narrative records also her internal resistance to a State that treats human beings as objects. It’s a story of women’s courage and determination. She acknowledges that it involves reconstructing and reordering chaotic events. She is aware that our access to the past is necessarily distorted by words. The novel’s satiric epilogue, “Historical Notes,” acts as a warning about the dangers of dismissing or overwriting history[17].

“Tape like this is very difficult to fake convincingly, and we were assured by the experts who examined them that the physical objects themselves are genuine. Certainly the recording itself, that is, the superimposition of voice upon music tape, could not have been done within the past hundred and fifty years. […] It has a whiff of emotion recollected, if not in tranquillity, at least post facto. […] Gilead society was Byzantine in the extreme, and any transgression might be used against one by one’s undeclared enemies within the regime. He could have assassinated her himself but the human heart remains a factor and both of them thought she might be pregnant by him. […] Did our narrator reach the outside world safely and build a new life for herself? Or was she discovered in her attic hiding place, arrested, sent to the Colonies or to Jezebel’s, or even executed? Our document, though in its own way eloquent, is on these subjects mute. We may call Eurydice forth from the world of the dead, but we cannot make her answer; and when we turn to look at her, we glimpse her only for a moment, before she slips from our grasps and flees. As all historian know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own days”[18].

The Testaments, a highly anticipated sequel written by Atwood, set fifteen years later the events of the first novel and that sees the transformation of Aunt Lydia character, was published in September 2019 and it was awarded the Booker Prize.

Questions have been raised if this is a feminist novel. Atwood explains, in her introduction to The Handmaid’s Tale[19] that “If you mean an ideological tract in which all women are angels and/or so victimized they are incapable of moral choice, no. If you mean a novel in which women are human beings and are also interesting and important, and what happens to the theme structure and the plot of the book, then yes.”

Furthermore, to the question whether this book is autobiographical, she answered: “ I had not donned a red outfit and a white bonnet and be coerced into procreating for the top brass of a theological hierarchy”.[20]

Moreover, it has been wondered if it is an antireligion novel. In this case, Atwood reckons that “it depends what you mean by that. True, a group of humanitarian men seize control and attempt to restore an extreme version of the patriarchy, in which women are forbidden to read. Further, they can’t control money or have jobs outside, unlike some women in the Bible. The regime uses biblical symbols, as any authoritarian regime taking over America doubtless would: they wouldn’t be Communists or Muslims […] The book is not anti-religion. It is against the use of religion as a front for tyranny; which is a different thing altogether”.

A last question was if it is a prediction, she answered “No, it isn’t a prediction, because predicting the future is not really possible: there are too many variables and unforeseen possibilities. Let’s say it’s not an anti-prediction: if this future can be described in detail, maybe it won’t happen. But such wishful thinking cannot be dependent on either.”

Offred faces Gilead’s terrible might as she tries to survive with an enduring sense of her self and with a constructive social interaction. To suppress individuality and to keep alive the regime, Gilead rewrites history, asserts governmental control, above all on television news-casts, forbids books, magazines and newspapers, and leaves only gossip as an independent source of knowledge. Gilead manipulates language, eliminates the written word where possible, generates its own forms of New-speak, debars women from writing, and keeps sacred texts locked away, inaccessible for most people in carefully chosen readings or recordings. It establishes a strict moral code emboldened by public ceremonies, making evident the omnipresent fear of the Eyes, and the silent warning proclaimed by the hooded and robed dead who hang along the wall.

Gilead also adopts measures specifically aimed against women, their individuality, and their identity.

With the publication of The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985, the Canadian poet and novelist Margaret Atwood stands out as one of the most rampant writing prophets. She has been unveiling this vocation as an independent social critic of uphill scope, a speculator in future times, a wry-wise woman and a modern seer in the line of William Blake. She’s also a critical reconstructor of cultural memory, like the biblical prophets, in the remembering of the past. Atwood's claims for traditional values are indeed anti-messianic, including the many multi-faceted forms of her wisdom, and not blamed by any transcendentality.

Soon after the coup, women were fired from their jobs, lost their right of abortion and birth control, were subjected to arranged marriages, found that their testimony in a court of law was not accepted without attestation, and discovered that their charge cards were closed and their bank accounts were placed in the hands of their fathers, husbands, and other male custodians.

Offred at first rigorously refuses to call the room where she sleeps in “mine”, because it has no key for her to keep secret her privacy, excluding the others, and because it’s a transitory way to stay for her. But eventually she labels it “mine” exactly when her private life is being compromised. When Offred loses any meaning of her life, she finds a set of memories that allow her to recall a sense of self: she can remember her job, her love for her husband Luke, her child, her friends, her education, her fun – the successes and failures of everyday life. Luke and their daughter slip into past tense. Her education and love for word games bring a kind of fulfilment with the Commander. Within the vortex of fears and vulnerability, the contrast between “blank time” and engaging interactions with powerful, inscrutable individuals, the handmaid finally fails to maintain her identity. She’s caught in the powerful grasp of the dystopia. In Gilead, in fact, personal identity formation and intersubjective relations are so weakened, degraded, and debased that domination and control are internalized by those who are subjected to the regime.

Offred delights herself by playing with words, re-brushing and keeping alive for herself the richness of the English language and providing, by that, solace and amusement in her leisure time. Sometimes her deconstructions open new perspectives, interpretation and critique, as with household and chair/char/charity. But her critical play with language leads to no action: the play may entice her into depoliticizing the implicit issue and into action.

In college with Moira, she toys with the phrase “date rape” just to ironically trivialize this ritual episode. A few years later, she sees sexism in the way of saying “even-steven” but she fails to recognize what Moira is trying to emphasize, that is to say that power relations between men and women in contemporary America are not even or equal. No loads of verbal construction, deconstruction and reconstruction seem able to help Offred understand, communicate, or resist[21].

Finally, the provocation to prophecy in Atwood’s work comes from reaching modern Western forms of faithlessness and amnesia that breed alienation, violence, and injustice. She seeks after the possible unities of things, by searching back through the lives of the earth and its culture for wisdom, weaving together many traditions, including the Judeo-Christian, to reawaken commitment to a covenant with life that Western civilization has again and again broken and she enters in the imagination of her readers through her evocative poetics of allusion, mixture of style, and fusions of gender[22].

Again, as far as lexicography is concerned, often The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace are often paired together in critical readings due to several shared features, including their first-person narration, which marks them out as resembling witness testimonials, and the reliability of the witness. While cognitive stylistic tools have been applied in the investigation of literary texts, their application to TV, film, and screen has been more limited.

Since its release, the first series adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale (MGM & Hulu 2017) has received great critical acclaim, winning eight Emmy Awards from thirteen nominations as well as two Golden Globe awards for Best TV series and Best Actress for Elizabeth Moss (who plays June/ Offred). The novel on which the series is based features June/ Offred as the first-person narrator who recounts her experiences in short sections that detail her present day and her previous life, as well as some of the events leading up to the inception of Gilead. In contrast to the sustained first-person narrative in the text, the TV series adaptations focalise the narrative through multiple characters – such as her friends, Ofglen and Moira; her husband, Luke; and the Commander’s Wife, Serena. June/Offred story remains prominent and she’s the only character giving a voice through interior monologue. The focus on June/Offred’s in the series serves to personalise her voice and story, but ‘because of the torturous training she’s subjected to under Aunt Lydia, she conveys her deepest and more personal thoughts via voiceover only’[23]. The voiceovers are often accompanied by ‘lingering close ups’ which create a strong sense of ‘claustrophobia’ for viewers[24].

A survey of ten online UK newspaper reviews of the first TV series comments on the political clearness, fairness, and relevance of this series. Critics describe it as particularly timely and prescient, depicting topics and social issues that move close to those in the current political climate, with reviewers framing these connections as not just resonating with our own but being aligned with contemporary reality. Chandler notes how ‘the horrors of The Handmaid’s Tale are happening right here, right now’ while Rees[25] observes that ‘this riveting adaptation has mapped itself onto the contemporary news cycle’. Atwood recognised that when it first came out, it was viewed as being fat-fetched and, when she wrote it, she was making sure not to put anything into it that humans had not already done somewhere at some time. This is why the author refers to The Handmaid’s Tale as speculative rather than science fiction, and labels it as an Orwell-inspired classic dystopia. Such connections have led the reviewers to acknowledge the cautionary tone of the story. Some view it as a contentious warning; a strong push to keep in mind what we have to lose. Instead, as with the responses to Oryx and Crake, the reviewers talk about the frightening nature of the narrative, through which The Handmaid’s Tale takes this further, enriched by horror elements. The process of creating a thrilling and upsetting story that presents a nightmarish vision of the world and verisimilar contents is believed to be terrifying. This horror categorisation is evoked in the political and social resonance of the novel, which presents a gruesome reality. Many reviewers identify the structure of the narrative, describe the use of flashbacks and the function they have in the development of the story:

Even the flashbacks work here. Because they are back to pre-Gilead, it feels like a brief respire […], before pushed back down again with a boot on your head. And they act like warnings- to Offred, maybe to us too- against normalisation. It wasn’t always like this, it’s not ordinary now: don’t let it become ordinary[26].

So, the flashbacks disrupt the spatio-temporal contextualisation of the rest of the story in the here and now of Gilead. The label ‘push’ is used for the felt experience of returning to Gilead., which is a term borrowed from computer science and used by researchers to describe the readerly experience of a deictic shift, the conceptual movement into a text or story. Following this theory, encountering June/Offred’s voiceovers takes another step back to the narrative contents, and a deeper conformity to her perspective. This viewing experience is conceptualised as blunt and apparently violent; started off by a ‘boot on your head’. Other reviewers observe the structural role of flashbacks in filling in the backstory, setting up that contrast between them and now through the ‘glimpses of Offred’s old life’, which deceive ‘sign of things breaking down’ into acknowledging divisions or depth of characters within the story. Critics comment on the divided role of women in Gilead, noting how the patriarchy’s great triumph is to persuade the women to police themselves.

Stylistic studies of film and TV have given emphasis to the analysis of dialogue from a practical perspective and on the adaptation of book to screen, whereas film studies approaches traditionally explore just visual cues. Recent accounts have argued that a combined investigation of verbal and visual codes in movies and other visual narratives would take advantage from further exploration, as language analysis has not historically been a priority in film studies, whose insights overlook the use of the dialogue and the interaction between language and non-language choices, exploring either macro-level issues of a film or a micro-analysis of specific frames. To provide an analysis that includes all these considerations, ideas from deixis, narration structure and pragmatics have been applied alongside a breakdown of the visual elements. It could be argued that the more prominent stylistic effects in The Handmaid’s Tale series relate to viewers’ understanding of June/Offred as a storyteller. However, although June/Offred narrates part of her story, film studies theorists acknowledge the presence of a ‘filmic narrator’ in telecinematic narratives. In this TV series, a romanticised and Baroque style has been used, supported by the use of a symmetrical composition.

On this issue, the ‘divided self’ metaphor was first explored by Lakoff in his accounts of ‘the divided person’, in which a person's experience is figured out as fragmented by the component parts of Cartesian dualism, the rational-emotional divide. In such metaphors, a person is divided by their more rational ‘subject’ and their emotional or bodily ‘self’, apparent in phrases such as I am not myself today or I made myself go for a run. While Lakoff explores the concept of the split self in terms of the metaphorical instances of the language[27], Emmott prefers adopting the terms ‘split selves’ broadly to include all cases of a character or real-life individual being divided and/or duplicated in any way in a narrative [28]. Emmott sounds out the duplication of both characters and real-life individuals who ‘perceived themselves to be ‘split’ because of a transitory sense of experiential discontinuity or because of a traumatic life change. Gottlieb identifies the protagonist’s division within the novel, which she narrates through ‘a series of juxtapositions between her deprived, degraded self in Gilead and her former emancipated self’[29]. Many reviewers noted, for example, that her name is June but also Offred, identifying her pre-Gilead names as well as conferring her status as belonging to Commander Fred in Gilead. She’s also shown in her former life with her husband Luke and daughter Hannah when they visit a fair, while also revealed to be in her bedroom in Gilead as she mentally recounts the memory. In these contexts, the division of selves is signposted through visual splicing and by verbal choices. Split self-presentation might be ‘inherent in the narrative form, since first-person narratives invoke a current self reporting on a past self’. Interior monologues are used ‘to convey a character’s thoughts, feelings or motivations at the auditory level’. Like other Atwood writings, The Handmaid’s Tale has a final revelation which reframes the content of the rest of the tale: an epilogue describes a future conference in which is revealed that June/Offred's story presented in the first 300 pages of the book was a transcription of a series of cassettes recording her account. The story is a ‘tale’, which is a label that ‘removes it at least slightly from the realm of mundane works and days’, while the term ‘story’ might well be a true story about what we usually agree to call ‘real life’. The verbal text also represents an ambiguous addressee, in that the you-referent often changes. Sometimes, the address can be ‘generalised’, with June/Offred commenting on facts which are relevant universally in the world or in Gilead specifically: ‘the chances for a healthy lady birth are one in five, if you can get pregnant at all’. This dialogue between the selves is also shown off in other passages of the novel, for example, in reference to not being pregnant despite the hopes of the household, she admonishes herself with ‘No ice cream for you this month, young lady’.

Occasionally, the ‘you’ referent is not June/Offred (‘I love you so much. Save Hannah’). Similarly, June/Offred addresses the previous Offred in response to reading a hidden scratched message: for example, in response to a gift from Serena of a jewellery box with a dancing ballerina in the lid June/Offred sets out ‘I will not be that girl in the box’, and then she writes ‘you’re not alone’ on the wall in the cupboard. A combination of horizontal and self-reflexive address can also be observed when she addresses Moira: ’Moira, you wouldn’t stand for this shit. You wouldn’t let them keep you in this room for two weeks. You’d find a way out. You’d escape. Get up. Get your crazy ass up.’

However classified, the you-references invite readers to consider the address of June/Offred’s tale. The you-address is a reminder that this is a tale about her life, which may be oriented towards a person. Moreover, the number of characters directly addressed (Moira, Luke, past/future Offred) functions as catalogues of Offred social roles: wife, mother, friend, Handmaid. At the same time, the use of self-referential address is a clear indication of her split selves. She has no one to talk to in Gilead, and therefore, she can ultimately only narrate thoughts to herself.

In June/Offred presentation of the self are used many metaphors. Emmot considers manifestations of how you can find metaphors in fiction and non-fiction narrative. Key metaphors in The Handmaid’s Tale relate to body parts and their metonymic relationships to the wider world. An ‘Eye’, for example, is the term for someone who spies for the Gilead authorities (‘Maybe he watches me. Maybe he’s an Eye’). Similarly, hands are also referenced in the text. Of course, they form part of the term ‘handmaid’ and, while ‘in Gilead hands and feet are pronounced non-essential tools’, the concept of hands as representing agency is nevertheless noted: ’I have given myself over into the hands of strangers’. These metaphors draw on culturally entrenched ideas of both agency and surveillance, and the isolation of body parts is emblematic of the wider objectification of handmaids in Gilead. Such ‘chains’ of repetition support the de-humanisation of June/Offred, which is further acknowledged in comparisons she makes between herself and animals (‘Washed and brushed like a prize pig’; ‘We’re two-legged wombs’) or inanimate entities (‘This is what I feel like, this sound of glass. I feel like the word “shatter”). Anyhow, the most prominent metaphors relate to a superordinate “container” source domain. The first metaphor observed is “a memory is a container”, which is evoked through both June/Offred’s mention of memories as something you can ‘fall in too far’, and later as something you can become ‘lost’ in. Charteris-Black argues that ‘the existence of a clearly defined container also implies a conscious controlling entity that fills or empties the container’. Like with some of the examples of self-referential you-address mentioned, June/Offred established herself in two roles: as the conscious controlling entity who populates the memory, and also holds control of her own movement within the container (‘If I let myself fall in too far, I won’t ever get out’). The reference to not being able to ‘ever get out’ further frames the idea of being contained as a negative experience; it becomes a country in which she can get lost, therefore, it forms an additional kind of imprisonment. This idea is further evoked when June/Offred references the woman who previously undertook the role of handmaid in Serena and Fred’s household: ’There was an Offred before me. She helped me find my way out. She’s dead. She’s alive. She is me’. Within this description, June/Offred designates the agency to the previous Offred as helping her ‘find [her] way out’. Conversely, the latter sentences acknowledge an amalgam of their roles: ‘she is me’ is an acceptance of their shared experiences. June/ Offred elaborates this first container metaphor in her description of ‘the room is a country’. In this declaration, there is a switch from her mental state to her physical reality. She draws on different source domains, moving from describing her memories to describing her surroundings. She narrates how ‘there are things in this room to discover’ and casts herself as being ‘like an explorer, a traveler to undiscovered countries’. This metaphor works by shrinking June/Offred’s worlds. It adjusts the scope of her situation of imprisonment by expanding the confinement of her room to the scale of ‘undiscovered countries’, and conferring the specific role of ‘an explorer, a traveler’ on herself.

Another container metaphor is that of “the self is a container”, when, for example, June/Offred depicts Moira describing how the self can be a container that provides protection: ‘They didn’t get everything. There was something inside her. That they couldn’t take away. She looked invincible’. Equally, the idea that invasion into this container is a type of assault is suggested in June/Offred’s reference to an Atwood poem:’ you fit into me like a hook into an eye. A fish hook. An open eye’. In a world that has stripped women of the physical right to own their bodies, the variations of container metaphors, and the idea that the self is something that can be slitted and contained, seem particularly proper.

June/Offred is not represented as one but as a plurality of characters, and she is represented through a division of mind and body. As the final part of this analysis, her divisions of self can be examined through the metaphors she draws on to describe her feelings and mental states. Finally, in The Handmaid’s Tale, readers experience a sense of immediacy and artificiality, being June/Offred herself witness to events. This effect backs the witness literature categorisation of the novel and contributes to discussions of the reliability of accounts similarly raised in Alias Grace. In other words, in Gilead, your account is always one which is mediated; one which is never completely your own.[30]

[1] See, Peter G. Stillman, S. Anne Johnson, Identity, complicity and resistance in The Handmaid’s Tale, Utopian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1994), pp. 70-86

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20719314

[2] See, Margaret Atwood, “Writing Utopia”, Writing with intent- Essays, Reviews, Personal prose (1983-2005), First Carroll & Graf edition, 2005, pp. 92- 100

[3] Intersemiotic Translation: translation/interpretation of a linguistic sign to a linguistic system of non-linguistic signs (for instance, adaptations or transmutations). About adaptations, see, among others, Umberto Eco, Dire quasi la stessa cosa, esperienze di traduzione, Bompiani Editore, 2013, pp. 363-395

[4] See, Ildney Cavalcanti, Utopia of/f language in contemporary feminist literary dystopias, Utopian Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2 (2000), pp. 152-180; https://www.jstor.org/stable/20718180

[5] See, Atwood M., The Handmaid’s Tale, Vintage Book edition, April 1998, pp.267-268

[6] See, Ildney Cavalcanti, Ibidem, p. 172

[7] See, https://britannica.com/topic/The-Handmaids-Tale-by-Atwood

[8] See, Margaret Atwood, Ibidem, pp. 94

[9] See, Margaret Atwood, Ibidem, pp. 374-375

[10] See, Margaret Atwood, Ibidem, pp.267-269

[11] “Without shame” can mean acting with a sense of wrongdoing but can be positive and confident; “shameless” means lacking a sense of shame and is generally negative, implying a lack of moral or social restraint.

[12] See, Margaret Atwood, Ibidem, pp.261-267

[13] For more info about nightclub fashion trends and the dichotomy between art and morality throughout the ages, see, Paola Canale, Burlesque in Canada, Barnes and Noble, 2021

[14] See, Ibidem, p.230

[15] Margaret Awood, Ibidem, p.230-239

[16] See, Margaret Atwood, Ibidem, p.285

[17] See, Colin Boyd, Jules Lewis, Andrew McIntosh, The Canadian Encyclopedia, October 15, 2019

[18] See, Margaret Atwood, Ibidem, p. 311

[19] See, Margaret Atwood, Ibidem, pp. XVI- XVIII

[20] Atwood M., Book of Lives: Memoir of sorts, Penguin Random House, 2025, p. XIV

[21] See, Peter G. Stillman, S. Anne Johnson, Identity, Complicity and Resistance in The Handmaid’s Tale, Utopian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1994), pp. 70-86,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20719314

[22] See, Janet L. Larson, Margaret Atwood and the future of prophecy, Religion & Literature, 1989, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40059401

[23] Fienberg Daniel, The Handmaid’s Tale: Review. The Hollywood Reporter, 2017;

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/handmaids-tale-review-991871

[24] Hinds, Julie, 2017 https://eu.freep.com/story/entertainment/movies/julie-hinds/2017/04/22/handmaids-tale-margaret-atwood-hulu/100714222

[25] Rees Jasper, 2017. The Handmaid’s Tale review; https//telegraph.co.uk/tv/2017/07/31/handmaids-tale-night-episodes-10-review-winters-tale-potent/

[26] Wollaston Sam, 2017, The Handmaid’s Tale review; https://theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/may/29/handmaids.tale-review-best-thing-youll-watch-all-year

[27] See, Lakoff G., More than cool reason: a field guide to poetic metaphor, University of Chicago Press, 1989; Lakoff G.,The contemporary theory of metaphor. In Metaphor and thought, University Cambridge Press, pp. 202-251; Lakoff G., Sorry, I’m myself today: The metaphor system for conceptualizing the self. In Spaces, worlds and grammars, University of Chicago Press, 1996, pp.91-123

[28] Emmott, C., ‘Split selves’ in fiction and in medical ‘life-stories’: cognitive linguistic theory and narrative practice. In Cognitive stylistics. Language and cognition in text analysis, ed. Elena Semino and Jonathan Culpeper, 153-182, 2002

[29] Gottlieb E., Dystopian fiction East and West: Universe of terror and trial, McGill – Queens University Press, 2001, p.103

[30] Chloe Harrison, The Language of Margaret Atwood, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, pp.187-206

Beyond the stoneyards

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 09:29:00 +0000

After all, if you want to leave me

I have nothing to blame you.

I will fly away, anyway,

like a bird,

with a burden leaning heavy on its neck....

perhaps I'll be strong enough,

proud of my madness, no strings...

what I believed in was some kind of fusion

or maybe a mirror of who I am...

in my bucket nothing more than gifts, symbols, or palliatives

to golden our moments...

I know you...

I'm identical to you...

wrinkles as tearing scars...

any hope sometimes,

just luggage ready to go.

I have no certainty...

even about you,

and I don't understand the trickling games of life,

but maybe we have found

our fucking, awful shit in a redemption,

out of sullen dungeons

and dejected graveyards,

beyond stale, rotten scaffoldings of a freedom someone tries to steal us,

and hovering over

structured regimes of imperant falsities.

One soul in two bodies.

Let's destroy them

and plant stars and stripes flags...

never alone, someone says...

this is the knot.

I've sunk...

deep inside my freaking standstill

or maybe the afterworlds of us.

It would be better not thinking too much,

fully seizing the moment...

Candlelight perspectives?

they are in our imagination,

not always in our command...

Let's everything, liquidly, boozingly, outflows...

Mal de vivre

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:02:00 +0000

Do you guess there's something more important than me?

today it's time for joy, for feast, for happiness...

I have nothing to celebrate....

just voices invading my frail mind

jerking off by paranoid and lust

waiting for the right moment of pleasure

and trees to cut off

and skyscrapers to climb.

you're my strenght, my wisdom

I have never had.

you're digging deep inside my soul

maybe hoping to rescue me or my petals!

scrambling in pieces

we don't find a dustman

to embrace our gruesome rubbles...

and we go astray

we pail around

in search of a spark of bright escape...

I don't know the conclusions,

just the starts or restarts...

having to have you?

feelings go mad...

the sky is still dark this morning,

sympathetically.

I don't need the nth illusion

but intimate fusion

or a numbness of passion

and nothing else to think about!

I feel an euthanasia pain.

Mal de vivre.

I'll go out soon.

Or maybe I'm already gone.

Figli della notte/ Sons of darkness

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:45:00 +0000

Avrei voluto poggiare la mia testa sul tuo petto, cuore mio,

stanotte,

ed essere incatenata in un tuo forte abbraccio

per non farmi volare ancora una volta via.

Non tornerà più il passato, amore,

una serie di velleità nascoste e parole non dette,

un'afonia del cuore e un'anima obnubilata,

estraniata.

Io e tu una cosa sola,

pulsione repressa,

come un delirio erotico.

Una rosa porpora e nera

come le tue labbra

che tremano di passione...

La legge del desiderio e la fretta dell'istante...

come Icaro scioglie le sue ali al sole

noi viviamo la notte, il regno del mistero,

come una culla,

senza vincitori né vinti,

in un'anestesia che ci aliena dal mondo e rapisce il nostro istinto

dove noi siamo noi

e tutto l'universo intorno cade...così distante,

così vacuo...anzi vuoto.

Siamo carne e sangue e l'anima chissà...

Tigri nelle macchine che celano vulnerabilità proibite

e chi si arrende è fuori.

Estromessi dal cemento, agogniamo a qualche bucolica demistificazione.

Natura umana violentata,

estrapolata, sguinzagliata, mercificata.

Vorrei fermare l'oggi

per rivivere ancora un giorno in più un'emozione crescente

in cui tutto diventa alchimia,

scrollandoci di dosso le futilità stanche

di un mondo che ha perso ogni speranza,

e in cui ogni dolore svanisce,

in una droga che i nostri odori fondono e, coi noi brividi, fremono.

I'd have liked leaning my head on your chest, my sweetheart,

tonight,

and being chained in a strong hug of yours

to not make me fly away once again.

The past will never come back, my love,

a bundle of hidden velleities and never said words,

an aphonia of the heart and an obnubilated soul,

estranged.

You and I, just one thing,

repressed pulsion

as an erotic raving.

A purple and black rose

as your lips

that tremble of passion...

the law of desire and the rush of the ticking moment

just like Icarus melt his wings under the sun

we live the night, the kingdom of mystery,

as a cradle,

with neither winners nor losers,

in an anesthesia that alienate us from the world and cut off our istinct

where we are just us

and all the universe around falls out...so distant,

so vain...actually, void.

We are flesh and blood and who knows about the soul...

Tigers in the machines that conceal forbidden vulnerabilities

and who gives up is sidelined.

Ejected by the cement, we crave for some bucolic demystification.

Raped human nature,

pulled out, unleashed, commodified.

I'd like stopping the nowhere

to live again one more day a rising emotion

where all becomes alchemy,

shrugging off from us the weary futilities

in a world that has lost every hope,

and in which every pain vanishes,

in a drug that our smells merge and, along with our shiverings, quiver.

I will always love you!

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 17:58:00 +0000

What truly matters in life?

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 11:33:00 +0000

You dwell in my utmost joy and desire

I can't help thinking of you night and day

not as an uncomfortable, upsetting obsession

but as the sweetest pillow I could ever have

to discharge heaviness, preoccupations, anxieties,

nightmares...

the pain that maybe I could never reach you out is devastating

exacerbating the void and the deep sense of loss

I've always carried with me.

An unquenched melancholy

and corrosive nostalgia.

Everything by now seems to be chilled between us

maybe for the guilt I have to not believe enough in you

although I'd wish it with all my strenght and hope.

It's such an assurdity!

Perhaps we've been waiting for too long,

the situation is precipitated

and neither of us knows what to do,

what's the best choice, the rightest one...

if you ask me where the instinct is finished,

you leave me speechless

as virtuality ends up to fade any sensation

even if you perfectly know it wouldn't ever be just sex!

Then, our careers that keep us distant

obliged to not be bound to anyone

and anything...

you said you'll have never allowed

the flame of this warming candle would dim...

that's what's happening instead

for one reason or another...

it's not just a matter of giving up

but if it's still a reciprocated love

against all odds.

what matters most in life?

dreams or reality?

just words and notes,

the importance of emotions...

even among thousands doubts...

maybe the truth is in the middle.

We've tortured enough ourselves!

where should we go?

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 16:39:00 +0000

You're my sexual wanting and my prayer

the misticity, broken out in pieces,

my destruction and my life,

never a beginning but just my end,

finally losing my mind

and being kidnapped by a never denied passion...

you dissacrate everything

you're the reason I've chosen to lose myself forever...

joy and death

I gave you all that I could

and you gave it to me too...

we lost ourselves

just to find us again...

no matters what people say

nobody could understand it

and for what we feel inside

we have just paid out enough...or maybe...never enough...

we have to fight hard to be as we are,

for our difference,

for our ribelliousness,

for our lack of conformity...

you dont respect anyone...

neither I, because anyone deserve it

and it's hurting---still it is...

my scars never stop blooding...

I could never conceive love without pain

because the search of happiness is just an illusion,

something unreal...

why do we always have a smile on our faces?

passion is all that matters

and passion is dark

and passion burns...like loneliness...

we'll go on... where?

Is my home where or wherever I am?

Enigma

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 14:29:00 +0000

And I find myself alone,

never as I would like to be,

with or without you

somehow

beyond the cheerfulness,

and the nibbled and shy feelings

never empty of a bitter aftertaste,

to not consume, to not be able to love.

the mystic sense lacks, that I'm sure dwell in each of us,

that has united us a long time ago and I could never forget...

the way of the vice or of the wisdom?

I just know that I will never forget you.

You're unforgettable and transpassing

a hurricane in my life

so boring but more or less stable.

would you say stable?

I just know that I always drink beyond any measures

if it is the price that I have to pay for my freedom...

freedom from the charlatans,

freedom of the lost time

freedom from the subjugations....

when I know that it's enough just one drop of your love

to delete everything.

I loved you, I hated you, I felt lost but I 've found you again

and you are the greatest happiness for me.

I don't promise you eternal love,

but I can always offer to you my heart

and I've never deny to you this,

if you want it, as you have always reject it in a loo.

I've never been a star, worst a pornostar, no more a model.

I'm a never grown child

and I can stand the security belts,

they bore me.

With you I feel the shiverings of the risk,

with you I'd like to do thousands of things

and I don't know from where to start...

making up the time that has relentlessly changed us...

I don't wanna by subject to a whim of a man,

I'm not a game,

I am good anyway

I feel good with you.

Of course the fire's flames are very distant from us,

maybe you're not still ready

I don't know what you really want

if I am just a body

I've failed since the start

if you wanna amuse yourself maybe not

even if you've never had female friends.

so, I'm just a pain in the ass.

if you want to, I get out of the scene.

I don't understand you. that's all. feel your heart. stay in contact with yourself.

I've not been having a diamond in my heart for a long time

but I would have loved you anyway.

Cuori spezzati/ Broken hearts

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 08:47:00 +0000

Nell'amara oscurità di questo buco nero

Tutto si è ridotto in pura o impura cenere.

Chi sono io senza te?

La mia vita scivola via pensando a volte non abbia più un senso...capirai!

cosa mai ci si dovrebbe aspettare?

E l’amore e’ bello finche’ dura

o prova tu a convincermi di una possibile o quanto meno probabile spiegazione!

forse neanche l’amicizia tra ex conta assolutamente nulla...

troppo intimi! tagliati via....cancellati, distanziati, persi!

siamo forse tutti robotizzati? automatizzati? premi il pulsante e via?

i sentimenti, se fioriscono e prendono vita, non muoiono mai....

Non credere che io non abbia nutrito del rancore,

sardonico a volte, lacerante e furioso altre,

Forse perche’ mi sono ritrovata relegata ad un ruolo, un mondo passato che non tornerà più,

perché mi hai voluta liberare da una serie di catene

di cui tu non c’entravi niente…che dovevano riscattarmi da tutt'altro che da te...

forse perche’, come sempre, hai preferito qualcun’ altra,

la gelosia non so, o solo uno stupido gioco...

sulla mia pelle, sai, non è mai stato così gradito!

non è ossessione, non è ironia, non è sarcasmo…

chiamala se vuoi nostalgia o malinconia...sovrappensiero...

cuori spezzati, senza rimedio...

Perche’ tu sei stato l’unica persona che mi ha dato tutto se stesso senza riserve

lo so le cazzate, con un’altra ingenuita’, ma alla fine tutto vero!

Sola ovunque, anche tra la gente...a che serve?

posso avere tutto ma mi mancherà sempre qualcosa, qualcuno...mi mancherai sempre tu...

Per te ho raggiunto le eccellenze più sterili

ben magra consolazione, se pensi che sono povera e pazza, ma molto meno di tanti altri,

ancora io un senso a tutto lo ricerco!

tu sei il mio valore aggiunto.

Di questi duri sacrifici non ne posso più ma la vita e’ così: nessuno ti regala niente…

E’ cosi…sei quello che fai…forse per un ideale...non lo so...tu credi ancora in qualcosa?

forse ci facciamo abbagliare dallo sfolgorante luccichio di mera superficie e materia,

da cose allettanti molto più grandi noi,

sempre una strada in salita che percorri senza fermarti mai,

E se decidi di non fare piu’ nulla ti salvi solo da un’esaurimento nervoso,

di cui nessuno ha colpa, solo te stesso!

Sai che c'è? Questa solitudine non è poi cosi male...devo ripartire da me,

Nel bene e nel male,

nella disperazione talvolta,

talaltra sommersa dall' incombenza…sempre qualcosa da fare...sempre qualche "must do"

che ci porta dove? tanto, non basta mai nulla....

sarà deformazione mentale? sarò patologica?

L'adrenalina del vincere le sfide...forse è questa la mia vera ragione di vivere...

la mia motivazione, il mio motore

in questa macchina di merda che neanche funziona…

sinceramente a volte vorrei fermarmi un attimo,

avere più spazio per il mio silenzio,

riflettere

che almeno porta saggezza…

io non do un punto a questa poesia

perche’ sicuramente ne seguiranno altre.

Delusa da tutti ma so che ciò che resta sono io,

volente o nolente, che ti piaccia oppure no,

anche se non mi sono mai ricostruita una vera vita dopo....dopo...

perchè nessuno è come te.

sono cosi difficile da decifrare?

anche se lo so che non ci sono codici possibili...

solo l'amore!

In the bitter obscurity of this black hole

Everything has been reduced in a pure or impure ash.

Who am I without you?

My life glides away sometimes tbelieving it has no more a meaning in that...it's a big deal!

What on earth should one expect?

And love is mesmerizing until it lasts

or do you try to convince me by a possible or at least probable explanation?

Maybe even a friendship between ex lovers matters nothing at all...

too much intimate! cut off....deleted, apart, lost!

are, perhaps, all of us, robotized? automated? push the button and go?

feelings never die if they flourish and come into existence....

Don't believe I didn't hold any grudge,

sardonic sometimes, lacerating and furious some others,

Maybe because I've found myself confined to a role, a past world that will never get back

because you wanted to set me free from a burden of chains

which you had nothing to do with…that should have to rescue me from all but you...

maybe because, as always, you've preferred some other girlfriend,

I don't know...jealousy, or a stupid game...

on my skin, you see, i'ss never been so pleasant!

it's neither an obsession, nor irony, nor even sarcasm…

define it, if you like, nostalgia or melancholy... overthinking...

broken hearts with no remedy...

Because you have been the only guy who has given to me all of himself without reservation

I know, bullshit, with another naiveness, but at the end of the day all true!

Everywhere alone, even among people...what's the point?

I can get everything but I will always miss something, someone...I will always miss you...

For you I've reached the most sterile excellence

Such a cold consolation, if you consider that' I'm poor and fool, but much less than many others,

I still search, at least, a sense!

You are my added value.

I have enough of these hard sacrifices but this is life: no handouts…

That's how it is…you are what you do…maybe for an ideal...I don't know...do you still believe in something?

It's likely that we make us dazzled by the blazing shimmer of appearance and matter,

been tantalizing by things much greater than us,

always an uphill climb that you take, never stopping,

And if you decide not to do anything, you rescue yourself only from mental exhaustion,

which nobody is to blame for, just yourself!

do you know what's going on? this loneliness is not so bad after all...I must restart from myself,

for better or for worse,

sometimes in despair,

some others submerged by tasks…always something to accomplish...always some "must do"

that leads us where? you know, nothing is ever enough....

Would it be a mental deformation? would I be pathological?

The adrenaline to win the challenges...maybe this is my true reason for my life...

my motivation, my engine

of this fucking machine that doesn't even work…

honestly, sometimes I'd like to relax for a moment,

having more space for my silence,

for reflections

that at least bring wisdom…

I won't put a full stop to this poetry

because, for sure, more others will follow

Disappointed by everyone but I'm aware that I'm all I've got left,

willingly or unwillingly, if you like it or not,

even if I've never rebuilt an outright life afterward...after...

because anyone is like you.

I'm so indecipherable?

even if I know that there are no possible codes...

just love!

Al crocevia / At the crossroad

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 15:31:00 +0000

Ne sono passate di lune

ma tra stasi e dinamicità
ti stagli, come sempre, dritto in mezzo al cuore,
incurante del tempo,
per riempire le pagine dei miei diari,
un pò scarabocchiati, un pò oltraggiati, un pò immacolati...
io e le tracce di te,
il grande assente,
che continui a rimbombarmi nelle orecchie,
a smantellare i cardini di ogni certezza,
a risucchiarmi l'anima a gocce,
gocce di memoria,
gocce di piacere,
gocce di nostalgia.
Sei scomparso senza che ti te se ne possa più vedere neanche l'ombra,

cioè annullando me, che stavo al tuo riparo...
nessuno mai che mi parli di te,
di dove sei, che fai, dove andrai...
ho rincorso l'eco di te fin oltre oceano...
squarci di vita,
squarci di gioia,
recitate o vere,
per vedere amanti mano nella mano
a scambiarsi dolcemente baci
mentre io resto persa nell'abbraccio della mia solitudine,
dove per lo meno ci sei ancora tu,
insostituibile, unico...
catene di un amore non corrisposto
e che abbiamo spezzato,
che non lasciano spazio ad alcuna relazione, associazione, ripartenza,
inanellato nelle schegge di questa vita da cui spesso mi assento...
così lontano...si può sapere in quale dannato oltretomba sei finito?
ti ritrovo solo tra le pieghe della mia anima,
in quella linea di confine tra le estremità dei corpi e l'inizio di un'incoscienza amorale.
Tu la notte,
Io la luna.
due stranieri in cui regna l'incomunicabilità.
la nullità delle giornate.
La mia noia e i miei entusiasmi
sono pregni di te,
mia anima gemella,
ma che hai trovato il tuo perché altrove...
e nella tua isola, tu e quattro pescatori,
tu e una vergine gitana.
senza pensare che mi manchi,
che non hai capito niente,
che, nonostante i miei stati umorali,
le mie andate e i miei ritorni,
ti volevo mio ogni costo.
Nell'insensatezza degli incontri accidentali,
nelle accecanti, inevitabili, passioni di un'ora
vaneggio ancora del tuo imperituro ricordo,
bacio questa fedina che ho tatuato in un simbolico addio,
un marchio indecifrabile, tribale, straniero, come noi...,
una devozione a un senso di purezza
ormai dissoltasi nei cuori della gente
incompresa, estromessa, in omaggio all'allure della materialità e del denaro
e allo squallido comfort delle convenzioni sociali in cui amano sollazzarsi...
e tiro avanti....
celato in un intimo, recondito antro della mia anima sola,
avulso dal tempo e dallo spazio,
so che tornerai
e mi troverai ad aspettarti,
ancora lì, nel momento di fuga,
dalle urla del mio calvario,
per non rivedere più i soliti, sordidi angoli di questa odiata città,
in cui però ho conosciuto te e ogni strada si fa memoria.
Due anime nude nate in una città di mare,
come tante forse,
chi se ne va, chi sogna, chi impazzisce...
chi si ritaglia stracci di poesia prima di partire, in qualche modo, comunque e dovunque...
qui non si vive, si lotta per un tozzo di pane.
Tu l'hai sempre capito,
così come le mie valigie.
Adesso sono all'impasse,
ma spero non al punto di non ritorno,
a chiedermi ogni istante il perché di tutto questo,
e forse non lo saprò mai,,
quanto devo pagare ancora lo scotto di questa mattanza
che mi ha voluta distante da te, da me...da tutto ciò che conta?
avvolti in questa triviale, banale, immobile iperrealtà senza senso...
Guardo l'orizzonte, fantastico, sola, come sempre,
e ti cerco nella limpidità del cielo,
nel candore di una nuvola,
nella fragorosità di un'onda,
illudendomi che, nel silenzio, ascolti ogni mio pensiero,
abbracci ogni mio timore
e i sussulti del mio cuore...
a volte così rumoroso e travolgente,
altre sommessamente mistico e incomprensibile,
solennemente ignoto.
Vivo, sì,
qui non si riesce a morire neanche se vuoi,
ma nella speranza di rincontrarti,
linfa delle mie radici,
per guardarti negli occhi e dirci tutto,
che ci siamo sempre stati l'uno per l'altra,
e che nel crocevia dei nostri labirinti
la magia, l' indissolubile attrazione, l'allegria contagiosa non sono mai scomparsi
ma tracimano ancora da questo calice sempre pieno,
per smorzare una sete che non si placherà mai.

So many moons have gone by

but between stasis and dynamic moments

you stand out, as ever, right within, in the middle of my heart,
careless about time,
crammed into the pages of my diaries,
a little bit scribbled, a bit outraged, a bit immaculate...

I and the traces of you,
the great absent,
that keeps on resounding in my ears,
on dismantling the hinges of any certainties,
on sucking my soul in drops,
drops of memory,
drops of pleasure,
drops of nostalgia.
You vanished not leaving even a shadow of you,
that's to say annihilating me, that I used to stay under your shelter...

nobody who talks me about you anymore,
about where you are, what you're doing, where you'll go...
I ran after the echo of you till overseas...
gashes of life,
gashes of joy,
recited or true,

to see lovers hand by hand
that sweetly kiss each other
while I'm lost in the embrace of my solitude,
where at least I could always meet you,
the irreplaceable, the only one...
chains of an unrequited love

that we have broken out,

that don't leave space to any relation, any association, any restart,

ringed in the splinters of this life from which I'm often away...
so far...what damn underworld did you end up in?
I can find you out just among the creases of my spirit,
in that border line between the extremities of bodies and the beginning of an immoral unconsciousness.
You, the night,
I, the moon.
Two foreigners where the incommunicability rules.
The nullity of the days.
My boredom and my enthusiasms
are pregnant of you,
my twin soul,

that anyhow has found his reason elsewhere...
and in your island, you and four fishermen,
you and a gypsy virgin.
Not thinking that I miss you,
that you didn't understand anything,
that, although my whimsical moods,
my come and go,
I wanted you to be mine, at any cost.
In the nonsense of the accidental encounters,
in the blinding, inevitable one hour passions

I ramble again on your everlasting recall.

I just kiss this promise ring I tattooed in a symbolic farewell,
an incomprehensible, tribal mark, foreigner like us...
a devotion to a sense of purity
by now dissolved in the hearts of people

ousted, ejected in homage to the allure of the materiality and of money
and to the dreary comfort of social conventions where they love lulling themselves...
and I keep going on....
hidden in an intimate, secret antrum of my lonely soul,
detached from time and space,
I know you'll come back
and you'll find me waiting for you,
still over there, in the moment of the getaway,
from the screams of my Calvary,
not to see no more the same, filthy corners of this hated city,

where at least I met you...and every street becomes memory...

Two bare souls, born in a seatown,
maybe as many other ones,
who comes, who dreams, who goes crazy...
who carves out some rags of poetries before leaving, anyhow, however and wherever...

here you can't live, you fight for a crust of bread.
You have always realized it,
as well as my luggage.
Now I'm at an impasse,
but I hope not at a point of no return,
wondering each moment why all this is happening,
and maybe I'll never know...
how much have I to pay again the piper of this slaughter

that obliged me to drift me away from you, even from myself...from anything matters?

unshredded in this trivial, banal, stationary, meaningless iper-reality
I stare at the horizon, I fancy, alone, as always,
looking for you in the clarity of the sky,
in the candor of a numb,

in the thunderous of a wave,
beguiling me that, within the silence, you're listening to each of my thoughts,
you're hugging each of my fears
and the thrills of my heart...
sometimes so noisy and overwhelming,
some others softly mystic and incomprehensible,
solemnly unknown.
I live, yes,
here you can't die even if you want it,
but in the hope of meeting you again,
sap of my roots,
to gaze at your eyes and telling each other ,
that we've always been there for each other,
and that in the crossroad of our labyrinths
the magic, the unwavering attraction, the contagious joy have never disappeared,

but they're still overflowing from this always full chalice,
to quench this thirst that will never smother.

In punta di piedi /On tiptoes

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sun, 06 Oct 2024 08:15:00 +0000

I dolori degli altri sorvolano,

i propri dolori restano.

egoismo?

non credo.non credo a niente.

leggende

metropolitane, o di quartiere,

forse chissà personali.

la vita scorre via comunque, indifferente,

come lo dobbiamo essere tutti...

dal giudizio,

dal concetto che gli altri si fanno di noi,.

gli altri...

e tu? sei tutto quel che conta!

e se la vita è un cesso

io mi schifo

cosi come ho la nausea di tutto ciò che sta intorno a me!

superficialità, ipocrisia, menzogne...

se cerchi un dio non c'è

e sei solo tu

che fai quel che puoi, quel che devi,

e in un'area spenta noi prendiamo colore

perchè siamo figli della notte,

una quiete contrastata....

e l'esaltazione...per idolatria

o un mondo che vorresti senza confini

e sovranità violate...

dove andremo? come vivremo?

il mistero dell'arrangiarsi.

sogni, si...sogni...

con i piedi a terra si sta male, lo so...

e chi vive camminando sulle punte

un certo concetto se l'è fatto!

io cammino scalza,

cercando contatto.7

ma dove sono io?

in un interspazio non condiviso

in una solitudine torrida e accecante...

nessun contatto in realtà

solo rumore

e le speranze si spengono...

e la libido anche.

cosa fare? attendere o agire? la pazienza non è stato mai il mio forte...

ancora sono nel fiore dell'età

e non ho tempo.

il tempo dei miracoli...

tutto ciò che fai, te lo fai da sola!

e la voglia di vivere è abissata

in questo continuo alternarsi

di emozioni effimere di cui nulla resta.

la mia patria è stata la mia condanna,

ma anche il mio porco comodo

e se devo dire grazie

lo devo dire solo alla mia ribellione

a un sistema falso e corrotto.

la felicità sta nelle gioie minime.

ma chi l'ha detto?

e il culo che ho dato?

niente serve a un cazzo, lo so!

grandi saggi...

tutto deve finire...

e allora stiamo alle pezze!

i soldi...maledetti soldi...li odio!

ma il mondo funziona così....

adeguarmi?mai.

piegarsi?mai.

incensarsi?forse.

non abbiamo che noi stessi

in questo barcamenarsi di merda

che avrà una fine.

quello è certo!

se c'è una cosa giusta è che tutti dobbiamo morire.

li siamo finalmente tutti uguali!

questa è giustizia...

The pain of the others hover away,

our own remain.

egoism?

I don't believe. I don't believe in nothing.

legends

metropolitan ones, or of the neighborhoods,

maybe, who knows, personal ones.

Life flows anyway, indifferent,

as everyone should be...

from the judgment,

from the notion the others have of us...

the others...

and you? you're all that matters!

and if life is a loo

I disgust myself

as well as I have the queasiness of all that's all around me!

superficiality, ipocrisy, lies...

if you're in search of a God, there isn't one

and only you exist

you that do what you can, what you must,

and in a shut down area we take colour

because we are the sons of the night,

a contrasted quietness....

and the exaltation...for idolatry

or for a world you would wish without borders

and violated sovereignities...

where will we go? how will we live?

the mystery of making do.

dreams, yeah...dreams...

being down-to-heart makes you feel sick, I know...

and who lives walking on tiptoes

has ready had some sort of idea of it!

I walk barefoot,

looking for a contact.

but where am I?

in a not shared interspace

in a scorching and blinding loneliness...

any contact as a matter of facts

just noise

and hopes quench themselves...

and the libido too.

what doinge? holding on or reacting? patience has never been my strong suit..

I'm still into my prime

and I don't have time.

the time of miracles...

all you do, you do it by yourself!

and the will to live is sunk

in this continuous alternation

of ephimeral emotions of which nothing remains.

my home country has been my condemnation,

but also my comfortable damned convenience

and if I have to thank someone

Ihave to do it just to my rebelliousness

to a fake and corrupted system.

happiness is in the intimate joys.

but who told it?

and the asshole I've given?

nothing serves a fuck, I know!

great sages...

all must end up...

thus we are in ruins!

money...damned money... I hate it!

but that's how the life goes....

Adapting myself? never.

Bowing? never.

Incensing myself? maybe.

We don't have nothing but ourselves

in this shitting get by

that will hsave an end.

That's for sure!

if there's something right, this is that everyone must die.

In this, we are all finally equal!

this is justice...

Anima e nuvole / Soul and numbs

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:14:00 +0000

E di tutti questi sensi impazziti che rimane?

cinestesia assurda...

solo un'ombra dispersa di noi,

la riluttanza di fronte al passare del tempo...

voglia irrefrenabile di sentirsi sempre giovani,

di fermare la corsa

e forse attenderci.

sarebbe entusiasmante fermare la macchina del tempo,

che invece inesorabilmente avanza.

ma questa è la strada

per sentirsi imperituri.

esplosione di vita e chi se ne importa...

amaro rimpianto dell'età verginale

noi siamo quel che siamo

e tutto il resto trapassa...

l'essere umano, l'essere animale

preda degli istinti ci sentiamo impareggiabili

ma c'è qualcosa che manca...

la spensieratezza forse

o la poliedricità di un bambino assente

e ci vediamo sempre come la corrente del fiume

l'euforia di un momento.

scalzi,

indifesi,

infuocati.

la stella del mattino resta a guardare

e noi tralasciamo le nostre idiosincrasie.

stiamo bene ma domani chissà

sono solo anima e nuvole

quello che ci portiamo dentro

e che domani forse sarà ancora,

o forse no.

il guerriero è stanco,

affonda nell'estraneità dell'impercettibilità fantasmagorica in cui vivo,

perchè non bisogna esserci comunque sia

e perchè non sempre si ha bisogno di una direzione.

anime e nuvole

ci si sopraeleva per ritagliarci uno spazio,

riflesso del nostro mondo interiore

ma che ritroviamo solo nell'astrattezza di un bagliore,

in cui siamo solo io e te,

e tutto il resto non conta.

And of all these freaked out senses what does remain?

absurd kinesthesia...

just a scattered shadow of us,

the reluctance in front of the passing of time...

unrestrainable willingness of feeling forever young,

to stop the race

and maybe holding on.

It would be thrilling to arrest the time machine,

that instead inexorably advances.

But this is the way

to feel unperishing.

Explosion of life and who cares?.

Bitter regret of the virginal age

we are what we are

and all the rest passes through..

being human, being animal

prey of the instincts we feel ourselves incomparable

but there's something lacking...

maybe the jauntiness

or the versatility of an absent child

and we always see ourselves as the current of a streamflow

the euphoria of a moment.

barefoot,

harmless,

in fire.

The morning star stands out to watch

and we leave out our idiosyncrasies.

We're fine but who knows about tomorow

these are just soul and numbs

what we bring in ourselves

ant maybe tomorrow will be so again,

or maybe not.

The warrior is weary,

he plunges in the strangeness of the phantasmagorical imperceptibility in which I live,

because you don't always have to be there no matter what

and because you don't always need a direction.

Souls and numbs

one builds on top to carve out a space,

reflection of our inner world

but that we find out just in the abstractness of a glare,

where it's just me and you,

and nothing else matters.

Volo di farfalla/ Butterfly's flight

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 11:32:00 +0000

Era una botta soltanto?

Attitudine spenta…

E se non ci sarai

Non ci sarà più spazio per la solitudine

E se non ci sarai

Non ci sarà più posto per la carne…

Se ci sarai

Mi librerò in un volo di farfalla.

Has it been just a fuck?

exstinguished attitude…

and if you won't be here

it won't be any more room for solitude

and if you won't be here

there won't be any space for flesh

if you'll be here

I will hover myself on a butterfly's flight..

Cometa per sempre - Forever Comet

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sun, 04 Feb 2024 06:03:00 +0000

Quando pensi che è finita non lo dici davvero

Perché si cerca di non interrompere del tutto i legami

Tenendo tra le dita un filo impercettibile in onore di quello che siamo stati o che si è....legami?

Ebbene…Sono solamente con un pozzo di ricordi,

A non riuscire a reinventare né la vita mia

né tanto meno quella degli altri intorno a me.

Sono a un punto morto, dannazione!

Ma uno che ti buca il cuore…Dov’è?

E se vivessi solo l’attimo o giorno per giorno

Che significato avrebbe?

Ci credevo in gioventù ma ora sono stanca…voglio di più!

È solo rabbia inespressa, frammista a rassegnazione.

Il pianeta Marte mi ha sempre mandata allo sbaraglio, in balia della mia solitudine,

vecchia compagna

O forse è solo un incubo da cui un giorno mi rialzerò

O un linfoma inevitabile.

Preferisco sorridere all’accettazione, anche se non riesco ad accoglierla,

Visto che di negazioni e rigetti io ci sono cresciuta.

Ormai è l’eccezione che diventa regola.

Vivo di contraddizioni e nevrastenie.

Forse era buio

O forse era vita.

Non ci sto più a danzare sola intorno a questo salice

Che versa come me tutte le sue lacrime

Almeno per dieci minuti non fumo.

Cometa per sempre…

Ma per sempre stella

Ho viaggiato per non sentire il vuoto

Un vuoto che urla e fa saltare i circuiti neuronali,

viaggi di speranza,

per incontrare chi?

Viaggi interiori

Per scandagliare a fondo me stessa

E trovare delle ragioni a ciò che mi fa sentire sbagliata,

straniera a me stessa,

o inutile.

Come se per essere a questo mondo tu debba necessariamente avere un senso.

Lasciare andare, passerà… qui non passa mai!

Batti i pugni contro il muro, te la prendi col mondo intero, urli, combatti,

ma poi ti ritrovi sempre qui.

La stessa di sempre.

Tu e solo tu.

E cosa è cambiato.

Nulla. Assolutamente nulla,

solo con un pò di esaurimento in più

per aver lottato contro i mulini a vento.

Non è l’uomo, non è il lavoro, non è la famiglia, gli amici…

È non stare bene con se stessi,

non accettarsi,

e andare avanti infelice

per il ricordo di ciò che sono stata e, forse, non sarò mai più,

per essere fuori contesto sempre,

con un pugno di sogni in tasca senza avere, a tratti, più neanche la forza di vivere.

Non è smarrire se stessi…mi conosco bene!

Sono discontinua, traditrice, segreta

Progetto, aspiro, gioco,

per ritrovarmi sempre al punto di partenza,

eterna principiante nelle diverse esperienze della vita.

Il bello non è provarci, ma vincere.

Ho avuto i miei momenti di gloria,

troppo effimeri, troppo insoddisfacenti, troppo incompleti.

Ho avuto le mie passioni,

sempre insensate, e se no che passioni sarebbero…

per trovare la felicità io ho bisogno d’imperfezioni in me e negli altri,

ho bisogno del “diverso”, dell’alternativo.

Odio le omologazioni, le canalizzazioni, gli indottrinamenti.

Come quelli che ti dicono “te l’avevo detto”

e che hanno preferito sempre stare con la testa sotto la sabbia come gli struzzi accontentandosi.

Io non mi accontento mai di niente

e non mi voglio accontentare

anche se mi danna a volte.

Mi sono addossata mille rischi e lo farò ancora.

Sono sicura.

Cercando di edificare, mai distruggere,

se mai solo me stessa.

E sto bene cosi…non è mai vero…

M’intrattengo. Mi tengo impegnata

Per non pensare

Andando contro natura

Dal momento che la mente produce pensiero continuo

Che sia ordinato o no.

Non me l’ha insegnato nessuno come devo pensare e nessuno può dirmelo

Cosi vado avanti sola, nella mia vacua dignità

In cerca di sorprese, meraviglie, adempimenti…

Non sono mai stata fatalista. Non credo nei miracoli.

Cosi mi fermo. Non faccio più niente. Lo faccio quando ho voglia.

Perché non devo dimostrare niente a nessuno fuorchè a me stessa,

cercando di sfidare sempre i miei limiti.

Ma sai che c’è? me ne frego!

When you think the all is ended out, you don’t tell it seriously

Because you look for not losing completely your bounds

Wrapping me up among the fingers this subtle thread

in honor of what we have been or we are...bounds?

Here we are…I am whatsoever alone, with a well of memories,

Not succeeding to reinvent neither my life

Nor that of people around me.

I am at a dead point, damn it!

But one person that pierces your heart….where is he?

And if I’d live just of the moment or day by day

What would that mean?

I believed in it during my youth but now I’m tired…I want more!

It’s just unexpressed rage, mixed to resignation.

The Mars planet has always upset me, at the mercy of my loneliness,

Old company

Or maybe it’s just a nightmare from which one day I will get rid of

Or an unavoidable lymphoma.

I prefer to smile to the acceptance, even if I can’t welcome it,

From the moment I’m acquainted with denials and rejections, through which I’ve grown up

By now is the exception that becomes the rule.

I live of contradictions and neurasthenia.

Maybe it was dark

Maybe it was the life.

I'm breaking this alone dance around this willow

That cries along with me all my tears

At least for ten minutes I won’t smoke.

Forever comet…

But forever star.

I traveled to not feel the void

A void that screams and blows up all the neuronal circuits,

Voyages of hope,

to meet who?

Interior voyages

To sound out the bottom of myself

To find some reason to what makes me feel wrong,

Foreigner to myself,

or useless.

As if for existing in this world you must necessarily have a sense.

You let it go… here nothing passes by!

You hit your fists against the wall, you get angry with the whole world, scream, fight

to find yourself always here.

The same of ever.

You and only you.

And what did it change?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing,

just a little more mentally exhausted

to have tilted at windmills.

It’s not a partner, it’s not the job, it’s not the family or friends…

It’s not being comfortable with yourself,

Not accepting yourself,

and going ahead unhappy

for the remembering of what I was and, perhaps, I won’t be anymore,

to be always out of context,

with a fist of dreams in my pockets without having, sometimes, ever more the strength to live.

It’s not about losing oneself…I well know myself !

I’m discontinuous, treacherous, secret

I plan, aspire, play,

to always find myself at the starting point,

eternal beginner in the different experiences of life.

The best is not trying, but winning.

I had moments of glory,

too short, too unsatisfying, too incomplete.

I had my passions,

Always with no sense, on the contrary of what passion we’re talking about?

To find out happiness I need of imperfections in myself and in the others,

I need the ‘different’, the alternative one.

I hate the approvals, the canalizations, the indoctrinations.

As those who tell you ‘ I told you’

And that have always to stick their heads in the sand as ostriches, contenting themselves.

I'm never satisfied with anything

And I don’t wanna be satisfied

Even if it damns me sometimes.

I’ve loaded myself with thousands of risks and I will keep on doing so.

I’m sure of that.

Trying to build, never to destroy,

if ever just myself.

And I’m good in such a way….it’s never true…

I entertain myself. I'm busy.

to not think about

Going against nature

Since minds continuously produce thoughts

right or wrong.

No one has taught me how I have to think and no one can tell me that.

So, I go ahead alone, in my vain dignity,

in search of surprises, astonishment, achievements…

I’ve never been fatalistic. I don’t believe in miracles.

Thus, I stop myself. I don’t do anything. I do that stuff whenever I want.

Because I don’t have to demonstrate anything to anyone, except myself,

Always trying to defy my limits.

But, do you know what? I don’t care at all.

Solitary journeys

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 14:05:00 +0000

I miss you a lot, my freak, fragile angel,

and, since you have gone away, the grip of depression has undeniably, deeply caught me.

I miss our diversions, just not to be worried about the usual daily concerns...

I look for you in the things I run, in the people I meet every day that goes by.

Now I don’t want either hanging you up in a cross,

or cheating on you, or even harassing you, if you have taken this decision!

Sometimes I don’t even know what I'm saying...

Let me stop then. Stop talking, even writing...

Stop producing other work materials for psychologists!

Where will I go with all their so different assumptions?

Everything is relative! nobody can read out on my mind!

Everyone has their own idea...of what? what do they really know about me?

I don’t know who I should follow anymore...

I've decided: no one but myself!

I keep on stripping under coats, sometimes with those who don't deserve it,

erasing the springs of an innate machism under an iron armature.

This situation it's not likely to have any rescue

Just God can hear but he or she watches carelessly!

I give up in giving interpretations, in trying to read out in others' minds,

or whatsoever....

I don’t have any interest in what’s happening around me! sometimes neither inside me...

Just moments of untamed joy, only to survive, of hurting illusions, of grieving dismay

that indifferently slip away over my skin...over my head..not at all in my heart!

I don’t look for a new love....

I’m fed up with all these affairs!

Love is all around me if I wanna grab it (from who?)

if you content yourself...or maybe just hypocrisy...

at least those who dare to give a smile don't commit any crime!

The noise...I can't stand it...I’m always trapped in a confusing mayhem

But I remain what I’ve always been.

Nothing changes in my mind.

I keep on trusting on my beliefs

I don’t want to make compromises for any reason or anyone's sake!

Unfortunately, I truly get along just with myself...

No doctors, no scientists, no priests, no teachers, no friends!

The urgent call for reality let me deviate from the realms in which I'm confined!

I, perhaps, will never be so familiar to a proper perception of joyfulness!

I don’t feel any excitement to live in a solitary room,

Where nothing changes...never...

and I'm just subjugated by ghosts that often make you lose contact with facts,

obliging me to live as a machine or a stupid doll!

I'm not the puppet of anyone!

Above all if you consider that I'm getting bored of myself

and, in the wait for a new unlikely coming prince charming or a novelty,

I’d like to find something to dream about, an escape,

Hovering over the uphills of my imagination!

Being skeptical is not on my chords...

I keep on being marveled by beauty or quirky emotions,

Sometimes enthusiasm surrounds you and leaves you so unprepared to such a blessing!

I’m perfectly aware that nothing lasts forever,

no surprise effect that could turn me inside out,

It would be wonderful, but somewhat unrealistic, to find here my little California!

I’m honestly full of fears for next solitary journey, in and beyond myself,

but I try to not linger on these thoughts!

I’m so eager to engage myself in a new uplifting adventure

and if even if I will have to die,

it will be in search of something new and inspiring!

My life has been so cruel to me so far....That's all!.

I could give to me any painful consequence to overcome all of my limits and to undertake this experience,

under the shining light of a dream coming true American sun!

Dove va a finire il vento / Where the wind goes

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 12:22:00 +0000

Vorrei sapere dove va a finire il vento,

io che lo rincorro nuda e tremo,

vento che ci sospinge nei nostri labirinti così tempestosi...

vento che a volte ci fa perdere la rotta della ragione.

Nell'abbraccio di un amico o nei fantasmi del passato?

Forse finisce laddove va a morire il pensiero.

Navigando nello spazio ho conosciuto te,

internauti del cuore...

Vorrei sapere dove va a finire la scintilla di un amore perduto,

una storia che si ripete,

sovrastata dall'amarezza,

dimentica della gioia,

della magia, dell'effervescenza...

persi nel distacco e nella disillusione del ritorno

ad un ordinario rumorosamente destabilizzante

e nell'astinenza da quel calore ovattato e placentico,

da quel senso di totalità

che ci faceva bastare l'uno all'altro,

per cibarci solo di quei pochi ma intensi febbricitanti baci e candide carezze

a lungo agognati e sospirati.

Vorrei sapere che ne sarà di noi,

una volta che quella bolla d'amore

è esplosa al frastagliarsi di mille spine

e non c'è più quell'ìncantesimo che la rendeva integra

e la sorreggeva galleggiante nell'etere

sospinta da un flusso di misticità

che la rendeva infrangibile e splendente.

Vorrei sapere che ne sarà della bellezza

e dei ciclici germogli delle primavere dei cuori,

nel gelo di una neve che ci ha agghiacciato gli sguardi e gli istinti.

Passerà l'inverno ma sapremo attendere con fede

e preservare inalterati dei vaneggiamenti romantici?

Resta solo un senso di gentilezza sottile

nella sensibilità delle nostre fragili essenze

e il ricordo di una carezza sul viso

che celava un'inespressa verità di passione e reciproche affinità recondite.

Affinità elettive.

Where the wind goes

I’d like to know where the wind goes,

me chasing him naked and trembling,

Wind that propels us in our labyrinths, so stormy,

And makes us lose the route of reason.

In the embrace of a friend or in the ghosts of the past?

Probably it will end where the thought goes dying.

Surfing in the space I met you

Internauts of the heart.

I’d like to know where does go ending up the spark of a lost love,

a history that repeats itself,

Overwhelmed by the embitterment,

forgetful of the joy,

and the magic, the effervescence...

lost in the detachment and in the disillusionment of a comeback

to an ordinary life, noisily destabilizing

and in the abstinence of that muffled and placentate warmth,

from that sense of totality

that made us be sufficient for each other,

to feed ourselves just of those few but intense feverish kisses and pure caresses

for such a long time desired and sighed.

I’d like to know what will be of us,

Once that the bubble of love is blown up

by the indenting of a thousand thorns

And there’s no more any spell that made it intact

And bore it bloating in the ether

Pushed by a flux of mysticism

That made it unbreakable and shining.

I’d like to know what will be of the beauty

And of the cyclic sprouts of the springs of the hearts,

In the frost of a snow that has frozen our glances and instincts.

Winter will pass by but we will hold on faithfully

And preserved unchanged our romantic ravings?

It’s left only a sense of subtle gentleness

In the sensitivity of our fragile essences

And the remembering of a caress along the face

That hid an unexpressed truth of passion and reciprocal concealed affinities.

Elective affinities.

Senza lacrime - Without tears- Sans larmes

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 04:01:00 +0000

Senza lacrime

Attendere ogni giorno che il sole sorga,

Il principio di un’alba,

Nel cuore della notte hai tempo per dimenticare te stesso.

Nel disincanto freddo

Del vuoto che hai lasciato

A imputridire ferite scoperte,

ci ho creduto, sebbene irreale.

Cosa è veramente impossibile?

ho voluto illudermi che una strana magia

potesse rischiarare i miei pensieri

ed effondere in me quel calore di cui avevo bisogno

per scordarmi di quest’anima triste, spesso incompresa,

senza spazio, senza espressione.

Inseguire chimere

Di leggerezze e vanità

D’ilarità e gioia

E pago pur sapendo che non troverò risposta ai miei perché

perché credo che la speranza non possa morire

Che troveremo tutti un giorno un’ oasi per poterci proteggere

E in cui le nostre anime finalmente si potranno toccare

Congiungersi in un idillio onirico,

nonostante brancoli nel buio sola.

È quando fai i conti con te stessa che nessuno ti può aiutare.

Scardinare le paure e giocarsi tutto.

Vincere o essere fuori dai giochi.per sempre.

Per spezzare le catene di questo tunnel

Di cui, cieca,non riesco a intravedere la fine.

Il tuo amore mi avrebbe dato coraggio

Ma combatto contro la tua assenza

E mi angoscio il ventre in un malsano spirito d’avventura

Che non mi è mai appartenuto.

Vorrei una casa.

Senza lacrime.

----

Without tears

Holding on everyday that the sun rises up,

the very beginning of a dawn.

In the heart of the night you find out time to forget yourself.

In the frozen disenchantment

Of the void you’ve left

To decay uncovered scars,

I’ve trusted in it, although surreal.

What’s really impossible?

I’ve wanted to delude myself that such a strange kind of magic

Could brighten up my thoughts

And pour out on me that warmth that I’ve needed

Forgetting this sad, often misunderstood, soul,

Without space, without expression.

Running after chimeras

Of lightness and vanity

Of hilarity and joy...

And I pay out, well knowing that I won’t find an answer to my questions

Because I believe that hope can’t die

That everyone will find one day an oasis to protect themselves

And where our souls could finally touch each other

could reconnect themselves in an oneiric idyll,

although I fumble in the darkness, alone.

It’s when you come to terms with yourself that you realize that nobody can’t help you.

To unhinge the fears and to play everything.

To win or to be out of the games. Forever.

To break down the chains of this tunnel

Whose, blind, I can’t glimpse the end.

Your love would have given to me the courage

But I fight against your absence

And I grieve my womb in an unhealthy spirit of adventure

That has never belonged to me

I ‘d like a home.

With no tears.

----

Sans larmes

Attendre tous les jours que le soleil monte,

Le principe d’une aube.

Dans le coeur de la nuit tu as le temps pour oublier toi meme.

Dans le froid désenchantement

Du vide que tu as laissé

À pourrir plaies ouvertes,

j’y crois, si bien irréel.

Quoi est vraiment impossible?

J’ai voulu me tromper que une étrange magie

Porrai éclairer mes pensées

Et déverser en moi quelle chaleur dont j’avais besoin

Pour oublier cette âme triste, souvent mal comprise,

Sans éspace, sans expression.

Courir après le vent, poursuivre chimères

De légèreté et vanité

D’hilarité et joie

Et je paye, malgré je sais que je ne trouverai pas des réponses à mes questions,

Parce que je crois que l’ésperance ne peut pas mourir

Que tous nous trouverons un jour une oasis pour nous protéger

Et où nos âmes finalement se puissent toucher

Se rejoindre dans un idylle onirique,

malgré je tâtonne dans le noir, toute seule.

C’est lorsque tu fais face à toi même que personne peut t’aider.

Désarticuler les peurs et se jouer tout.

Dagner où être dehors des jeux. pour toujours.

Pour briser les chaînes de ce tunnel

dont, aveugle, je ne peux pas apercevoir la fin.

Ton amour m’aurait donné le courage

Mais je lutte contre ton absence

Et je m’inquiéte le ventre dans un malade ésprit d’aventure

Qui ne m’a jamais appartenu.

Je voudrais une maison.

Sans larmes.

Kate Moss: a wordly acclaimed ambassador of British fashion style

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 14:09:00 +0000

Since the ‘90s when started to be highlighted into the spotlight the role of the models on the stage and the cult of models personalities, no more considered just as mannequins but that lured the public eye for the way they interpreted wearing dresses and coutumiers communicative messages by their custom-tailored collections, Kate Moss icon of beauty cannot be left behind, being an outstanding example of what British fashion style means, bringing it to the world.

Emblem of the skinny and slender size and a minimalistic fashion trend, she hark us back to the concept of essentialism and to the core elements of the mannequin psychology of donning outfits with a hint of simplicity and neutral, natural approach. Paradoxically, talking about Miss Moss it’s not proper referring to a sort of anonymity and transparency by the way she could distinguish herself and as the cold but straight charme left an indelible mark on the international catwalks (New York, Paris, Milan…)she threaded upon and on more of 300 glossy paper magazines, such as Vogue, Elle, Vanity Fair, GQ, etc.

Symbol of a candid austerity she painted of lightness the grey London skies, letting us feel the slightness beyond the numbs, jumping out of rigorousness, the strictness and narrow mentality by a genuine naivety on the street as well as on the runaways. It’s extraordinary, in fact, her embodied interpretation of mental and physical detachment from all what’s around her, in any case or circumstances, riding the wave of the hustle and bustle and hitting hard the ground of the showbiz industry she managed with a next door girl, pure and simple smile that doesn’t forget a strong spirit of sacrifice stretched to the bones and dedication. Her constant passion for perfection pushes her to work hard on her body and mind, by practising several hours and hours a day sport activities and daily workout and to severely control diet and nutritional intakes, embolding rationality upon greediness. Going beyond the harshness of the critics all the stars can’t avoid to deal with, the accusation of inciting teenagers to anorexic habits and demeneors and some sort of addiction as smoking or making occasional use of cocaine to help her standing still, she has demonstrated to fly high over the provocations of a world of information that however has never hatred her , on the contrary has always adored her sense of self- containment, gentleness and class, showing to simply enjoy life and to be an exceptional partygoers and friendly mate of other models colleagues, as Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell and to be very admired and exalted in her tininess by stylists such as the casual and informal Calvin Klein. In his denim, minidresses and cotton zero-kitsch embellishments and ornaments bringing to the four corners of the globe his message of extreme essentiality and minimalism, bringing down any secondary accessories and trinkets, reaching to an androginity standard, not only by his often unisex collections but also by his perfumes such as One, Be, Eternity and Obsession, emphasizing the characteristic vague gaze and big eyes of the model, that often give us the impression to be lost in a kind of void, to have got that je ne sais quoi, that has always been that quid that brought her to be a step ahead than the other ones and a powerful series of striked poses that remark her skinny simple look .By the passing of times, after working for almost every fashion stylists such as Versace, Gucci, Saint Laurent, Rimmel, Dolce e Gabbana,Missoni, Dior, Burberry and Bulgari, she became the allure testimonial of a classy and over-refined Chanel, adorned of threads of pearls and feathers, abandoning the old straight ‘90s image, jumping into the gold, showing off thigh skimmed slipdresses, fluffy voiles and veiling stockings, bringing her fresh breeze to the sophisticated French trend icon of traditional, classical beauty. Snapped in the public as well as in her private life, very busy, although her appearance of fragile grown up woman, she’s always demonstrated how much though she’s always been in managing her business and her crowded and fuzzy lifestyle, finding also the time for some but exceptional love affairs, among which we remember celebrities as Johnny Depp, and Peter Doherty, Jamie Hince that gave her a daughter, Lila Grace, and recently the German aristocrat and photographer Count Nikolai von Bismark, always under a veil of moderation and sobriety, keeping her private life far from nasty gossips and scandals.

Impressing audience since her start-up times of Storm Model Agency in New York for her reverse mode that swept away over sized, Mediterranean, plumpy or curveliness trends of the previous years she enchanted everyone by her innocent feautures and sexy lips other than by the grace of her gentle moves, that has given her the fame of a seraphic, angelic, almost ethereal woman.

In her 40s, far away from the times of super modeling, she’s made her debut as businesswoman, by designing a special collection for the British fashion company Topshop in London , named “Moss”, that mixes original fringes and straps to essential core clothes and textures, other than bags, belts and accessories and participated as an actress to the series “Absolutely Fabolous” and as interpreter of beauty in the G. Michael video “White Lights”.

The simplicity of her dresses aims to put in evidence the perfection of the body underneath it, almost as a way to convey the message that more that what you wear it’s important what there’s under the outfit, preferring to be rather than to have. The dress is finalized to exalt the perfection or the main traits of the body, so a fashion industry not focused on itself, in an over elaboration and abundance of fabrics and materials, but on the woman silhouette.

Don’t let us surprised how she has been capable to gather and welcome throughout the years so different fades of the universal feminine appeal and lending her face to so different interpreters of womanhood. by a subtle, delicate and slippery fascination and cliché.

Video presentation of my e-book "Eternal feminine: an inspirational sour...

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 11:49:00 +0000

Love is not a slot machine

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sun, 20 Feb 2022 19:49:00 +0000

Love is a chaotic magmatic fire

Hot red like the colour of your lips

that enframe your candid white exciting smile.

A fire that burns and melts the smallest particles of your molecules

Pushing you to an unavoidable transformation and evolution to your next being,

That makes you stronger,

Maybe wiser, maybe sillier…

It’s all about absurdity,

The strangest and the most pleasant accident you would live or die for and could ever happen to you.

Trusting in your feelings you can be never cheated on.

They tell us much more than words and gestures,

They master the whole complexity

And have the clearest and the most comprehensive view

That catch what rationality fails to grab or snag.

You feel to have never been so alone and scared

and at the same time so complete

like in a magnetic gaze we would be only a thing.

Breaking down boredom, upsetting old mindsets you’re tired to keep on bearing

And you want to get rid of

to renew and regenerate in something else.

Love is black

Like your sexy eyes…

Dead-killing as the faded end lines of your eyebrows…

Fine like your sleek cleverness

Cunning and quick like your intuitive glances

Strong and firm like your grit

Black as the reassuring darkness of the calm seawaters of the night

Like a maternal cradle that lulls you until the end of time

The colour in which something you repel dies to turn in something else.

I painted all my fires, along with their fireplaces, in black,

To be here. To be now.

Here you are that, from single pictures, you create the sequence

and the movie of a ballet, exclusively orchestrated by the heart,

A tango that sees our legs and bodies intertwined and grasped

in the musical alternation of the rhythms

That jots down subtle harmonies in the magic, feverish space around us.

Clear, glad and sensual the vibrations of your voice in which inflections I sail and linger on…

Strong infatuations make you inexplicably lose consciousness

reasons why it’s the most amazing form of madness

In which not all shapes are congruent and always fit well one another

In which you constantly work on rounding off and soothing the corners

Searching improbable joints.

It’s hypnosis in which you’re lost in a swarm of emotions.

You hear but don’t listen to…

The details vanish, like your perspective,

Focused in another dimension,

In a tantalizing luring puppeteering of parts of you

whose you pull up and down the threads in search of the perfect minuetto,

that irresistibly attracts you in a mysterious alchemic game.

When you welcome and make room to it

it's like the coin you choose to insert in a slot machine

looking for some kind of luck

maybe at the beginning a way like another to pass your time

longing for something new and different, some kind of amusement or whatsoever…

Maybe initially distractedly bored but insanely curious,

then more and more involved till you finish to be enthusiastically raped

Taking on all your risks for victory’s sake.

It gives you the shivers on your spine like an electric shock

in a ride on a roller coaster in and outside the tunnels,

needing to strongly fasten your belts and from which you wouldn’t never get off.

I’m not that kind of strong in my private life…

You and I,

We are pure art forms and culture,

Impressive portraits of perfection,

The chiaroscuro of a hysterical complementarity of melancholic hilarity,

linked by the quintessence of illusion,

Enchantment from classy glamour,

masterpiece of nature,

inside out beauty and gorgeousness,

Smile to life.

Starring at each other eyes we can move mountains

primordial spring of energy

Trying to control the blood pressure and dizziness

To not stumble on our feet

In the perplexity if losing or not losing control.

Every new love gushing from my heart

Makes me feel experience means nothing to me.

Whatever else are even all the marriages if not a strolling around in an overcrowded Lasvegas casino’?

Love is an affair at risk of consumption

But it’s never a losing game

If you can make it on your own.

You must be enough chameleonic,

If you decide to invest in it

playing on disguise, to win the match,

to conquer what so strangely, suddenly, awake your wittiness and your senses

Passing over what is flat, old and useless by the passing of time

That project you in new realities or new dangerous fantasies

You can never know

Nothing’s predictable

I want the kingdom between my legs

And one memorable night would be enough to give you all.

Love feeds by itself

but if unrequited perishes like parts of yourself

when one day after another look at you knowing that you could never be mine.

when you’re trapped in the cage of the illusion

you ask yourself what’s wrong with you and why it’s not possible to turn it into reality

Early or late, you need to touch the earth

All the flights need a landing or you bet your head derailing to obsession and maniac

Don’t take a joke too far!

When I realize it in my obnubilated mind

it has already taken roots in my depths

always late

hardly believing… waiting for too long makes you lose hope.

skepticism has nothing to do with dreams,

so you are at a crossroad .

Sad and void, aware that this kind of emptiness could be filled just by him,

you can really perceive to be already addicted and sometimes unnerved

in the anguish for all the efforts made in vain in the immutability of the events.

Agonizing frustration.

We are distant in any possible meaning

and maybe nothing could join us, now and never…

and you feel your life itself has no sense

even if he keeps on making you feel it,

it flows into your pulsing veins.

It’s the magic of seduction that from the initial attraction wants just to head towards the sea

Always this game of impossible equilibria,

of give and draw back, to keep alive the desire,

when you would rather like completely lose yourself to the other

I’m tired of all this stuff…

I have frayed nerves and my temples drilled…

Apathy as well as the excess of adrenaline could play tricks!

Love is also the certainty that you can let you go and set you free

That sane middle way and line of continuity so wished and never known

beyond the void and the nothingness after the scruffles and the fuss…

what is true, then, when nobody knocks at your door?

You never stop to give me all sorts of orgasms but I can’t touch you,

All is surreal and highly unlikely,

The pernicious fatal effects of virtuality…

Exaggeration is my first skill and my utmost damage!

The sad princess is a child always grown up in the lost or missing of her soul-mate

That’s why she hates games and slips away from them

That’s why she’s in a hunt of shelters.

Lover is a winning gambler…but will this luck last forever?

Without filters in the tunnel (free thoughts) - Senza filtri nel tunnel (pensieri liberi)

noreply@blogger.com (Paola Canale) — Sun, 13 Feb 2022 15:41:00 +0000

Without filters in the tunnel (free thoughts)

from "Versi da una camera oscura", Amazon editions, 2021

I don’t know how much again I should serve my guilt to have loved with no limits

Neither of the mind nor of the conscience

I recollect the fragments of what has been at the mercy of nothingness

Just by virtue of my passion and without welcoming addressers.

As ever, I love who is not present

And the imperviousness of the path attracts me and shrouds me without filter.

Who we gather what I sowed along the way and will succeed to stitch me up

To come back to be what I was and to evolve in something somehow better?

I have no consciousness of what I am

And the future is an unclear arcanum.

Behind the walls of indifference often are hidden sick hearts.

I hope I'll have transpired some sense of beauty and an inner illumination

Even if sometimes avulsed from reality,

I'll have gifted a dream

In a world that is not so marvelous

And escapism

And a cradle of tenderness

In which finding shelter.

I know how it feels

When you arrived stretched blown out to the limit

And you feel with no rescues, no god, no alibi, no hope.

This is what I have given, not asking anything in return,

As I would have wished to have been done to me.

But it was like talking to a deaf person

And to show to a blind man.

So much that I had to turn back to retrace my steps

Not losing out too much.

I wished a son of love to offer to life…I produced cancers…the sons of rejection…

My immunological system is fucked out,

Psychological defenses to seal again

But at least the poetry is left.

You’re a professional killer.

Maybe it’s just me the deaf and the blind person.

Probably it’s the strange manner to adapt oneself to life.

And I’ve lost and an important part of me, having been abandoned.

Mocked and repeled,

Made insignificant,

With you, I risked the bottom of the barrel.

Maybe I have a propensity for bastards…

Every day a humiliation more.

You sucked me into a vortex

To see me reduced begging for a caress or a gesture

Making me go beyond each of my abysses

To always find new resources

To be able to love you one time more

Persisting in not accepting a reality different from that I have imagined.

Let’s not turn back anymore, let’s look just ahead,

Towards more natural compatibilities, out of the machine,

Searching not just by the instinct and the heart

But also by the use of the mind

What helps us to build our happiness,

If we are not able to stay alone.

We would cause less damage if we would learn to love ourselves more.

It’s been foolishness. Maybe it’s my fault.

The end of a love story is not the end of life,

Even if I live each of them as if they were unique,

even if I always fight with my first of them, the only unforgettable one,

And it’s hard to find new equilibria

Because every story transforms you

And you can’t always be equal to yourselves.

We drag ourselves, we combat to find ourselves again unnerved, not knowing what to do

Sometimes for the wish to put ourselves at stake

To find a sense where sometimes there isn’t one

To look then the sky and find again the serenity,

a sky that shows us that this is all.

I don’t know if it exists the perfect alchemy or it’s just a bullshit that we tell ourselves

But I have learned by experience that the most important thing is to not lose oneself of sight,

To preserve us from useless devastations and self-harm,

In search of wisdom within an emotion.

Love is communion, not annulment for the other

Even if maybe I won’t ever be capable of not giving myself completely without conditions

And I will live forever, somehow, the conflict.

Arrived to forty, you come to terms with it

With the fact that nobody won’t be able to fill up that void

But maybe I’m just wasting my time with no point

For who has never deserved it and has never cherished my happiness.

I try naturally to open myself to life, with its joys and sorrows,

to who wants me to reflourish and smiles at me,

rather than dredging up an inclement past

to shake off the cross of pain.

Senza filtri nel tunnel (pensieri liberi)

Non so quanto ancora dovrò scontare la colpa di aver amato senza limiti

Né della mente né della coscienza

Raccolgo i frammenti di ciò che è stato sparsi in balia del nulla

Forti solo della mia passione e senza destinatario di recapito.

Come sempre amo chi non c’è

E l’impervietà del percorso mi attrae e coinvolge senza filtro.

Chi raccoglierà ciò che ho seminato per la via e riuscirà a ricucirmi

Per tornare a essere quel che ero o evolvere in qualcosa comunque migliore?

Di quel che sono non ho coscienza

E il futuro è un arcano incerto.

Dietro muri d’indifferenza spesso si celano cuori malati.

Spero di aver fatto traspirare qualche senso di bellezza e illuminazione interiore

Sebbene talvolta astrusi dalla realtà,

di aver regalato un sogno

In un mondo che tanto meraviglioso non è

Ed evasione

E una culla di tenerezza

In cui trovare rifugio.

So cosa si prova

Quando si arriva scoppiati al limite

E ci si sente senza scampo, senza dio, senza alibi, né speranze.

Questo è quel che ho dato senza chiedere nulla in cambio,

come avrei voluto fosse stato fatto a me.

Ma era come parlare a un sordo

e mostrare a un cieco.

Tanto da dovermi ritirare sui miei passi

senza rimetterci troppo.

Volevo un figlio dell’amore da offrire alla vita…ho prodotto tumori…i figli del rifiuto…

Il mio sistema immunitario va a puttane,

Difese psicologiche da ricucire

Ma almeno è rimasta la poesia.

Sei un killer professionista.

Forse la sorda e la cieca ero proprio io.

Probabilmente è lo strano modo di adattarsi alla vita.

Ed io ho perso e ci ho lasciato una parte importante di me.

Irrisa e repulsa

Resa insignificante

Con te ho raschiato il fondo del barile.

Forse ho una propensione per i bastardi…

Ogni giorno un’umiliazione di troppo,

mi hai risucchiata in un vortice

per poi vedermi ridotta ad elemosinarti una carezza o un gesto

facendomi andare oltre ogni mio abisso

per trovare risorse sempre nuove

per riuscire ad amarti una volta in più

ostinandomi a non accettare una realtà diversa da come l’avevo immaginata.

Non volgiamoci più indietro, guardiamo solo avanti,

verso compatibilità più naturali, fuori dalla macchina,

cercando non solo con l’istinto e il cuore

ma anche con la mente,

ciò che ci aiuta a costruire la nostra felicità,

se non sappiamo stare soli.

Faremmo meno danno a imparare ad amare più noi stessi.

E’ stata una follia. Forse è colpa mia.

La fine di un amore non è la fine della vita,

anche se vivo ogni storia come se fosse unica,

anche se combatto sempre col mio unico primo,

ed è dura riequilibrarsi

perché ogni storia ti cambia

e non si riesce più ad essere sempre uguali a se stessi.

Ci si trascina, si combatte per ritrovarsi sfiniti e non saper che fare

Talvolta per la voglia di rimettersi in gioco

Per trovare un senso dove talvolta non c’è

Per poi guardare il cielo e ritrovare una serenità che ci mostra che è tutto qui.

Non so se esiste l’alchimia perfetta o è solo una balla che ci raccontiamo

ma ho capito con’esperienza che l’importante è cercare di non perdersi di vista,

di preservarci da devastazioni inutili e autolesionismi,

cercando saggezza dentro l’emozione.

L’amore è comunione, non annullamento per l’altro

Anche se forse non riuscirò mai completamente a darmi senza riserve

e vivrò sempre in qualche modo il conflitto.

Giunti a quarant’anni te ne fai una ragione

Che quel vuoto non lo potrà mai colmare nessuno

Ma forse spreco solo tempo inutilmente

Per chi non l’ha mai meritato e non ha avuto mai a cuore la mia felicità.

Cerco di aprirmi naturalmente alla vita, con le sue gioie e i suoi dolori,

a chi ti vuol fare rifiorire e ti sorride,

piuttosto che rivangare un passato inclemente

per scrollarmi di dosso la croce del dolore.