1971 collection of poems by Margaret Atwood. Anansi Press, Concord, Ontario. ISBN 0-88784-579-7

This is a brutal little book. I can only read one or two of the poems it contains at a time before it hurts too much. As Phyllis Webb writes on the back cover, "Margaret Atwood performs an autopsy on a love affair that's dead but won't lie down." I bought my copy of Power Politics at the beginning of my freshman year of college, which inserted enough distance into my existing relationships to reveal unignorably how unhealthy they were, so it became increasingly relevant as the year passed. Today I can look at its contents and think beyond the raw passion and pain of a doomed heterosexual relationship and see a greater picture of male-female conflicts, romantic and otherwise. But I still read carefully, and only bits at a time.

Most of the poems in Power Politics are untitled, including my favorite, which begins,

We are hard on each other
and call it honesty

and so I can't node them like I might otherwise. However, I am willing to share Power Politics in the Great Grand E2 Book Lotto style, so if you're interested, drop me a /msg and we'll see what we can do.