The Circle Game

“The Circle Game” is a narrative poem by Canadian poet and novelist Margaret Atwood, published in her 1964 poetry collection of the same name. The Circle Game won the 1966 Governor General’s Award, and the titular poem was later published in The Selected Poems 1965-1975. This poem, like many others in the critically acclaimed The Circle Game, addresses the idea of an innocuous surface with a probe into darker truths. The poem also features Atwood’s trademark parentheticals for aside commentary and her use of Roman numerals to divide the poem into distinct sections. This poem tackles a plethora of themes important to Atwood’s writing, including the environment, oppressive or restrictive systems, and references to the past in conjunction with present and future realities.

Poet Biography

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, but she spent much of her childhood in the woods of Quebec because of her father’s research on forest entomology. These regular travels did not allow Atwood to attend school full-time until she was 12 years old. As a result, she read whatever she could get her hands on and wrote poetry and plays. At age 16, she aspired to be a professional writer and, once enrolled at Victoria College, began publishing her poems and articles in the college literary journal while pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in English.