SOURCE: "Jail-Breaks and Re-Creations," in Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, Anansi Toronto, 1972, pp. 233-47.

Atwood is an acclaimed Canadian-born writer. In the following excerpt, she outlines Bissett's political vision as articulated in NOBODY OWNS TH EARTH.

The amazing thing about [Nobody Owns th Earth] is that it juxtaposes visions of Edenic happiness and peace with angry political poems like "Th Canadian" and "Love of Life, th 49th Parallel," the latter being probably the most all-inclusive poem on American takeover to appear so far. And yet it isn't, finally, amazing: anger and the desire for change depend on the assumption that change will be for the better, that it is in fact possible to achieve not only individual but social freedom. The title, Nobody Owns th Earth, predicts a world that will be not "international" but post-national, in which people will live on the earth with love...