Share this page :
Margaret Atwood (18 November 1939 / Ottawa, Ontario)
This is a Photograph of Me
It was taken some time ago
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;
then, as you scan
it, you can see something in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.
In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.
(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.
I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.
It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or how small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion.
but if you look long enough
eventually
you will see me.)
Read poems about / on: house, tree, water, light, time
People who read Margaret Atwood also read
Top 500 Poems
-
Phenomenal Woman
Maya Angelou
-
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
-
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
-
If You Forget Me
Pablo Neruda
-
Dreams
Langston Hughes
-
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
-
If
Rudyard Kipling
-
A Dream Within A Dream
Edgar Allan Poe
-
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
-
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
For a contemporary response to 'This is a photograph of me', check out: http: //egobeagle.blogspot.com/2010/04/this-is-photograph-of-me.html
I love Atwood's poetry and prose work. While her original intent in writing 'This Is a Photograph of Me' was perhaps (I haven't read her comments or any other exegesis) to express the suppression and negation of women, reading it just now reminded me that she speaks for everyone—anyone, regardless of gender or age, who has felt negation, who has felt erased by the world, can respond on a gut level to this poem.
In her regular line of feminist writing, Atwood is once again declaring the low importance placed by society on females. The speaker feels suppressed, pushed beneath the surface, not really seen but always there. Never noticed yet always present is the way Atwood describes women’s role in a prominently male society.