[True Stories] is a worthy successor to [Atwood's] previous works. As in an earlier book of poetry, The Journals of Susanna Moodie, the poet stakes a claim in the world against natural, human and inhuman forces of uncontained, inexplicable oppression….

Through a personae of professional torturers, seen as artistic poseurs, Atwood probes for clues to the insanity and irrationality that mock the life principle. Again, the truth varies and wavers, takes on plausible and implausible facades. In "Notes Towards a Poem That Can Never Be Written" (dedicated to poet Carolyn Forche, whom Atwood admires for her courage as a political journalist in El Salvador), her linguistic control and detachment convey more horror than any overwrought, "social conscience" poetry….

Atwood's strength derives from the fact that she seems to know exactly where she has come to at any stated point. The lay of the land is visible to her...