For Margaret Atwood, life is quest, and her writing—particularly her poetry—is the charting of that journey. Atwood's journey is seldom geographical…. Unlike Charles Olson, Atwood does not dwell on location, physical presence, details of place. Her search is instead a piercing interior exploration, driving through any personal self-consciousness into regions marked by primitive responses both violent and beautiful. Atwood is interested in the human condition, a condition which exists independent of sex; and she plays a variety of games in order to explore that condition fully.

The strategies Atwood uses in her poems are similar to those of her fiction: personae described in terms of such basic biological functions as eating and sleeping; myriad patterns of disguise, whether literal or anthropomorphic; duality presented as separation, as in relationships between lovers (the hints of Jungian traits suggest that Atwood's "males" could represent the rational side of her...