At Christmas I was given Dearly, the slim hardback book of Margaret Atwood’s poems. I’ve never thought of her as a poet but Dearly is a revelation. As with her novels, Atwood crystalises those intense emotional moments of life, the ones that stay with us, and sets them into everyday context. This is a wonderful collection about growing old, rememberings, endings and beginnings, passing by and moving on. Dedicated to her partner it is a personal collection, and very touching.

The poem I have chosen is ‘Invisible Man’. A short poem of five verses, full of how it feels to lose your lifelong partner. The absence at the table, on a walk, like an invisible man in comic books, still there but seen only by the one left behind, remembering

This poem is subject to copyright restrictions so here’s the first verse as a taster. Please search for the full poem in an anthology or at your local library.

‘Invisible Man’
It was a problem in comic books:
drawing an invisible man.
They’d solve it with a dotted line
that no one but us could see’

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Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Tulips’ by Wendy Cope
‘Serious’ by James Fenton
‘Sounds of the Day’ by Norman MacCaig

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Invisible Man’ by @MargaretAtwood https://wp.me/p5gEM4-590 via @SandraDanby