Margaret Atwood
Dearly, 2020

Before she became one of the world's most important and loved novelists, Margaret Atwood was a poet. Dearly is her first collection in over a decade, bringing together many of her most recognisable and celebrated themes; from minutely perfect descriptions of the natural world, to myths, legends and pressing political issues.

The cover of Margaret Atwood’s new collection of poetry – taken from a recent work by British sculptor Kate MccGwire – features a great swirl of deep blue feathers, touched by tones of light grey and brown; and it’s appropriate not only because of the number of birds that appear in the 57 poems, or sequences of poems, gathered in this book, but because of the soaring quality of the verse itself, which is often dark, but always illuminated by characteristic flashes of brilliance and wit, and powered by a pure force of creative energy that sometimes feels like a mighty wind, lifting us up and shifting the ground beneath us as we read

- Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman

The poems explore bodies and minds in flux, as well as the everyday objects and rituals that embed us in the present. It was with these thematic leanings in mind, that a detail of Kate MccGwire’s work, Echo (2018), was selected as the cover image for Atwood’s much-anticipated release.