Summary - This is a photograph of me

The title of this poem by Margret Atwood is This is a photograph of me, and as you come to recognize the content of the poem, it becomes much more clear what the significance of the title is to the rest of the poem.

The poem is told by a person (Margret Atwood) who is looking at, and describing a picture that was taken "some time ago". The content of the poem is very clearly divided into two different parts, not only physically (by brackets), but also by the tone of the poem. The first half of the poem appears to be a very nice description of the Canadian landscape surrounding the area where Atwood was raised (Northern Ontario and Quebec). This first half of the poem seems to almost put the reader in a calmer state by slowing the poem down, and using very soft diction ("gentle slope"). This calm state is however quite abruptly put to a halt at the beginning of the second half of the poem when the reader finds out that the speaker is dead. The once panoramic view of the scenery is now zoomed in and the lake that was originally in the background is now in the center of the image. The reader is also told near the end of the poem that if they look deep enough into the poem, that they will be able to see the dead person.

The theme of this poem could definitly be blurriness, because right from the beginning, the author chooses to use words such as smeared and blurred when describing the image. Also, the whole idea that the author does not say exactly what they mean at any time means that they intended for some details to be a bit blurry. Due to this, I am forced to believe that another theme of this poem is hidden meanings. Many hidden meanings are also hidden within metaphors, of which there is a strong presence in this poem.

There is no definite structure to this poem, but it is interesting how the author uses syntax and brackets to make the reader thinking differently.

This poem has a very strong presence of metaphors, which the author seems to use to include hidden details. Another stylistic divice found quite heavily within this poem is imagery because of the constant referal to a picture, and the author saying that if you look at the picture with more detail that you can see other things. This leads me to believe that the author intends for different parts of the picture to represent other things (the lake representing the fluid that a baby is contained in while in a mothers womb).

This is a photograph of me - Margret Atwood

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 see 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 small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)