Dearly

Margaret Atwood has always been a poet; her poetry collections make visible the taproot of the wry wise metaphysic that runs through her fiction and essays, and in a precarious time her new collection, Dearly, is a source of uncompromising elemental warmth

Ali Smith, Observer, *Books of the Year*

Atwood's first poetry collection in over a decade is intimate, lingering delicately between the human and the natural, and this world and the next

New Statesman

Atwood is surely one of our planet's most priceless commodities

Goodreads Choice Awards 2020

She turns her eye to the past, to nature, to fantasy, to current affairs, all with the calm eye of a writer who has nothing to prove

Maria Crawford, Financial Times Books of the Year

This collection of poems is a reckoning with the past that comes from a place of wisdom and control . . . You can almost hear her speaking voice, see the twinkle in her eye . . . wonderfully observed

Observer

This whole collection stands as a mighty demonstration of how great poetry can embody and celebrate the sheer vibrancy and beauty of life, in the face of the most profound sorrow and terror. Read these poems aloud, read them carefully, read them with joy and tears; savour the raw power of their rhythms and assonances, and the sheer mastery with which Atwood, at the height of her powers, transforms anger and grief into glinting beauty and brilliance. And then ask yourself whether, if humanity survives, any future historian could ever find a richer, more courageous or more truthful account of what it was, and how it felt, to be alive in these times; and give yourself the answer - no, most truly, she could not

Joyce McMillan, Scotsman

She's become world famous for The Handmaid's Tale, and jointly won the 2019 Booker Prize for The Testaments, but Canadian author Margaret Atwood was once better known as a poet . . . this new volume brings together some of her favourite themes, from zombies, werewolves and aliens, to the passage of time and the most pressing political issues of the day

Evening Standard

A poignant yet playful collection of verse, about endings and departures, it is sliced with clever, sharp humour

Daily Telegraph

I finished this collection deeply impressed by Atwood's capacity for powerful, lyric description

Rebecca Tamás

Elegaic yet cautionary, Atwood's first new collection since 2007's The Door revolves around themes of mortality, environmental jeopardy, memory, feminism, and loss . . . Combining the wit of Dorothy Parker with the wisdom of Emily Dickinson, Atwood adds a steely grace and richness all her own. If there is beauty in despair, one may find it here

Library Journal

She's one of the few contemporary writers whose poetry and prose receive equal amounts of praise. Dearly, which collects her first new poems in 10 years, covers love and loss, humanity and nature. Also: Zombies. She's keeping us on our toes, as usual

Washington Post

A new volume of poetry by the writer of wit and optimism . . . Just when we needed her most

Gentlewoman

Atwood, one of the most celebrated, decorated and admired novelists in the world, started out as a poet

Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times

Poems, Atwood argues, aren't the rhetoric of the immediate; they emerge slowly out of human understanding's glacial melt . . . Here we see Atwood at the height of her poetic powers: her imagery made tangible with sound . . . The more Atwood wields specifics, the more of the world she skewers with her fantastically sharp imagination

Emilia Phillips, New York Times Book Review

Here we see Atwood at the height of her poetic powers

New York Times Book Review

So moving and expansive about love and loss that out of its wryness, its gravitas and its deep sadness blooms something far beyond the word "moving"

Ali Smith, Guardian