Visualization Reflection: Video for "Variation on the Word Sleep" by Margaret Atwood

Catherine Pate
Apr 19, 2016
2 min read

Margaret Atwood's "Variation on the Word Sleep" is an image-rich free-verse poem playing with the ideas of sleep and dreams--sleeping beside a loved one, sleeping "with" something, and entering someone's sleep. Her wordplay brings into question the reader's expectations about assumed associations with "sleep," and subverts expectations. The sleeper is troubled, and the speaker wants to enter the dreamworld of the loved one in order to understand it. The poem can certainly be interpreted sexually, but the ideas here are deeper and more universal than that. Unable to access the source of the trouble during day-time, conscious hours, the speaker wants to enter into the deepest part of the beloved's mind, to witness her darkest fear, then help lead her out of it. She seeks a truth that cannot be revealed in the harsh light of day.

For the visualization of the poem, I pulled out the images, then began to play with how to portray them, attempting to show the internal world of the sleeper's dream. I was particularly struck by the image of the cave, the white flower, and the dreamworld quality with its "watery sun and three moons." I decided to use watercolors to play on the watery, dream-like world Atwood creates. Because I am no artist, I chose to build each part of the visualization separately so I could arrange and play, and not be restricted to the demands of whole composition from the start. A friend of mine saw my work and suggested making a stop-motion video, which was such a fabulous and fun idea. The video brought out the sound-elements of the poem, as rich as the visual ones, and allowed a unique representational opportunity. It also allowed me to portray multiple images without the dreamscape becoming too crowded.

I then converted the parts to a 2-D representation, culling some of the images I used for the video to create balance. The essential images of the poem are still present-- the watery moon, the cave descent, the boat that brings them back out, the moons, and the white flower. Overall, both representations allowed me to appreciate the images of the poem in a more considered way, unmasking, for me, the beauty and complexity of Atwood's poetic genius.