Margaret Atwood's First Collection of Poetry in Over a Decade to Be Published This Year

Last year, we were treated to The Testaments, the follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale, from famed Canadian author Margaret Atwood. If you’re a fan of Atwood’s writing, then you’ll be pleased to learn you don’t have long to wait before you can get your hands on her latest release, a collection of poetry, which will be her first in over a decade.

Called Dearly, the collection of poetry will explore themes of “absences and endings, ageing and retrospection”. If that sounds a little dry for your taste, then you’ll be glad to learn it will also include werewolves, aliens and sirens. We’re certainly intrigued.

As The Guardian reports, Dearly is set to be published later this year in November, and will be Atwood’s first poetry collection since 2007’s The Door. Chatto & Windus, the book’s publisher, said the collection is “by turns moving, playful and wise”, and explores “bodies and minds in transition, as well as the everyday objects and rituals that embed us in the present”. There will be supernatural elements with “werewolves, sirens, aliens and dreams” and “various forms of animal life and fragments of our damaged environment”.

Becky Hardie of Chatto said: “Every poem in Dearly rings with all Margaret Atwood’s characteristic curiosity and energy. It is a pure delight which stretches heart and mind.” An audiobook version will be recorded, and will feature Atwood as the narrator.