SOURCE: "Formal Allegiances: Selected Poems × 6," in The Kenyon Review, n.s. Vol. X, No. 3, Summer, 1988, pp. 127-46.

In the excerpt below, Smith offers a mixed review of Atwood's Selected Poems II.

Among American readers Margaret Atwood is Canadian literature. She has published a book annually for more than two decades, deploying a strong historical consciousness, a rich narrative imagination, and a willingness to use formal literary expression to confront whatever wrongs human dignity and freedom. Her accomplishments have been manifest in best-selling fiction, in literary criticism (the often cited Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature suggests her range), and in ten books of poetry beginning with The Circle Game in 1966. Many readers consider her foremost a poet. The simultaneous republication of her 1978 volume Selected Poems 1965–1975 with her 1987 Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New 1976–1986 may do more than confuse readers with over-lapping titles. It may raise questions...