poetry response 4

You Fit Into Me

By Margaret Atwood

Poetry Response

This wonderfully simple to the point poem gives a very blunt and fruitless description of when two people are simply not meant to be. The lines "you fit into me like a hook into a eye" not a pleasant comparison by any means. With such a simply spoken 4 line poem Margaret manages to convey her feelings toward an individual it such a dry and clear feeling towards another individual.

This form of simplistic writing is almost a flaunting of poetic skills. Using very little to emphasis a powerful feeling is a very hard skill to master. But I also believe Margaret did this intentionally as almost a show of how cut and dry her feelings are in this poem. Not wishing to go any further into the subject because she cares so little for the idea of it. Her distaste rings true in this poem; almost as if shes staring into your face rudely explaining why she doesn't like you. A very bland poem if you ask me, but bland is by no means tasteless, this poem is absorbed like a saltine cracker, salty quick to eat, not a whole lot to hide behind.

Then again from a completely different standpoint the phrase "you fit into me" could very well be literal. Bringing in some questionable gestures indeed. But a totally viable viewpoint. Margaret seeming almost very straightforward and rather gritty person could easily use suggestive descriptions in a painful and morbid manner.  This phrase could almost be an enticing allure in a very strange way; The wording of the second stanza using" a fish hook an open eye" to over emphasis the already described event, could give this a taunting or strained desire for a reaction. And since tension can be broken in the best of two ways in a face to face encounter, i can imagine Margaret getting ready to either slap the reader or kiss them furiously. 

I rather enjoy this poem. On the surface it looks like nothing more than the ramblings of a bar drunkard, but in a deeper understanding this can tell Margaret's manners, personality, way of handling situations, and even relationships if you had the evidence. Its far from being the simple shell of a poem it appears to be.