''True Stories'' is a collection of

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

author

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nin ...

, published in 1981. The collection is dedicated to poet Carolyn Forché with whom Atwood had discussed her trip to

El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...

as a member of

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

, and the poems both directly and indirectly discuss her views regarding

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

in third-world nations.Cooke, Nathalie. ''Margaret Atwood''. Greenwood Publishing Group (2004) p.6 The poems of ''True Stories'' confront the nature of poetry, question whether they may be conventionally defined as poetry. They diverge from the themes established in her previous poetry; they explore themes of atrocity, of war and torture. Ultimately, they confront whether “poems come from such horrors?”.Montagnes, Anne. "Atwood moves to epic substance, as maturing culture moves from the lyric True Stories". ''The Globe and Mail''02-14-1981. E.15

Notes

External links

1981 poetry books Poetry by Margaret Atwood Canadian poetry collections Oxford University Press books {{poetry-collection-stub