February

So... this was an interesting poem. When I first read it I honestly didn't think there was much depth to the poem. I thought it was about sex.. and that was pretty much it. Even in lines that may not have been intended to sound sexual I sort of got the impression they were. ex ". . .jumps up on the bed and tries to get onto my head. It’s his way of telling whether or not I’m dead. If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am He’ll think of something" and "He shoots he scores!" The overall tone I got from my initial read was pretty negative. Especially in the lines where it says " It’s all about sex and territory, which are what will finish us off in the long run. Some cat owners around here should snip a few testicles. If we wise hominids were sensible, we’d do that too, or eat our young, like sharks." Basically what my interpretation of the poem was that Margaret Atwood was against reproduction. To me, this poem says that if we were smart we wouldn't be worried about sex or territory because if we do then these things will be our demise. I didn't really understand why she used a cat in this poem until we discussed it in our small groups. Someone in my group said that they thought Atwood was equating male behaviors to cat behaviors (later we established this idea in our large group discussion). After searching for the deeper meanings I really did like this poem better than many of the others in this unit. One thing I noticed about the poem (whether it's really significant or not) is that the first word of the poem is winter and the last word is spring- which to me seem like complete opposites (winter usually symbolizes death and spring new life). I felt like maybe this was a reflection in the tone of the poem because although Atwood starts off by saying if we are wise we will "snip a few testicles" she ends the poem saying "so get going on a little optimism around here". I dont know if that makes sense, but it's just a thought