Starspangled Cowboy
ASSIGNMENT 1
205L: Close Reading, Good Writing
By Aly Verbaan
Student # 31201792
Backdrop addresses cowboy
By MARGARET ATWOOD
Starspangled cowboy sauntering out of the almost- silly West, on your face a porcelain grin, tugging a papier-mâché cactus on wheels behind you with a string,
you are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets.
Your righteous eyes, your laconic trigger-fingers people the streets with villains: as you move, the air in front of you blossoms with targets
and you leave behind you a heroic trail of desolation: beer bottles slaughtered by the side of the road, bird- skulls bleaching in the sunset.
I ought to be watching from behind a cliff or a cardboard storefront when the shooting starts, hands clasped in admiration, but I am elsewhere.
Then what about me
what about the I confronting you on that border, you are always trying to cross?
I am the horizon you ride towards, the thing you can never lasso
I am also what surrounds you: my brain scattered with your tincans, bones, empty shells, the litter of your invasions.
I am the space you desecrate as you pass through.
Selected Poems; 1974
The subversion of the (Western) male hero depicted in Margaret Atwood’s ‘Backdrop Addresses Cowboy’
It would be impossible, as well as obtuse, to attempt to assay a literary work with such clear political and feminist themes as this one without taking into account the period in which it was written, as well as the biographical statistics of the author. Published by Canadian author and poet Margaret Atwood in Selected Poems (1965-1975), it is my contention that Backdrop Addresses Cowboy must necessarily be considered within the ambit of American/Canadian politics of the time, as well the socio-sexual struggle against manifest feminine identity and stereotype, which, it may be argued, continues to the present day. Furthermore, it is a fact that this poem was composed during the
205L: Close Reading, Good Writing
By Aly Verbaan
Student # 31201792
Backdrop addresses cowboy
By MARGARET ATWOOD
Starspangled cowboy sauntering out of the almost- silly West, on your face a porcelain grin, tugging a papier-mâché cactus on wheels behind you with a string,
you are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets.
Your righteous eyes, your laconic trigger-fingers people the streets with villains: as you move, the air in front of you blossoms with targets
and you leave behind you a heroic trail of desolation: beer bottles slaughtered by the side of the road, bird- skulls bleaching in the sunset.
I ought to be watching from behind a cliff or a cardboard storefront when the shooting starts, hands clasped in admiration, but I am elsewhere.
Then what about me
what about the I confronting you on that border, you are always trying to cross?
I am the horizon you ride towards, the thing you can never lasso
I am also what surrounds you: my brain scattered with your tincans, bones, empty shells, the litter of your invasions.
I am the space you desecrate as you pass through.
Selected Poems; 1974
The subversion of the (Western) male hero depicted in Margaret Atwood’s ‘Backdrop Addresses Cowboy’
It would be impossible, as well as obtuse, to attempt to assay a literary work with such clear political and feminist themes as this one without taking into account the period in which it was written, as well as the biographical statistics of the author. Published by Canadian author and poet Margaret Atwood in Selected Poems (1965-1975), it is my contention that Backdrop Addresses Cowboy must necessarily be considered within the ambit of American/Canadian politics of the time, as well the socio-sexual struggle against manifest feminine identity and stereotype, which, it may be argued, continues to the present day. Furthermore, it is a fact that this poem was composed during the
Bibliography: Margaret Atwood, “Backdrop Addresses Cowboy”, Selected Poems (1965-1975). Virago Press, 1976. Pat Sillers, Power Impinging: Hearing Atwood’s Vision, Volume 4.1. http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SCL/bin/get.cgi?directory=vol4_1/&filename=sillers.htm. 1979. Malcolm Peet and David Robinson, Leading Questions. Nelson Thornes Ltd., 2004. Jim Benz. Suite101: Backdrop addresses cowboy by Margaret Atwood: Reality Indicts Simulacrum. 2010. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5cbkgYolOSMJ:canadian-poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm Declaration