Voice Assignment

Provisions

What should we have taken with us? We never could decide on that; or what to wear, or at what time of year we should make the journey So here we are in thin raincoats and rubber boots On the disastrous ice, the wind rising Nothing in our pockets But a pencil stub, two oranges Four Toronto streetcar tickets and an elastic band holding a bundle of small white filing cards printed with important facts. -Margaret Atwood This is a brief poem, but very interesting. The voice that comes through to me is kind of down and regretful. She is looking back at choices she could have made in the past that would have made her better of now. For example, when she says 'what should we have taken with us?' she is implying that they did not take the right things with them. She sounds like she's given up and accepted the situation when she writes 'so here we are in thin raincoats and rubber boots'. The list of what's in their pockets adds to the intrigue of the poem and is the main reason I liked the poem so much. The objects are so random and the reader wonders what the important facts are on the bundled notecards. The phrases 'disastrous ice' and 'nothing in our pockets' make the author sound a bit glum. I really like this poem because it's ambiguous, random and uses description and imagery sparingly and tactfully.