You Begin
Margaret Atwood
You begin this way
This is your hand
This is your eye
That is a fish, blue and flat
On the paper, almost
The shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
Or a moon, whichever
You like. This is yellow.
Outside the window
Is the rain, green
Because it’s summer, and beyond that
The trees and then the world,
Which is round and has only
The colours of these nine crayons.
This is the world, which is fuller
And more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
With the red and then
The orange: the world burns.
Once you have learned these words
You will learn that there are more
Words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
Like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
Your hand to this table,
Your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.
This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
Which is round but not flat and has more colours
Than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
This is what you will
Come back to, this is your hand.
Analysis
In this poem, Margaret Atwood is talking with a child about the world. The first two lines are, "you begin this way/ this is your hand". This could be referring to beginning to learn new words. An adult points to an object and says the word, hoping the child will catch on. Expanding on this idea, the title, You Begin, could be about a human beginning to comprehend the world around him or her, starting with basic ideas like "this is your hand".
As the poem continues, a very strong repitition of the words "this is" becomes clear. In some stanzas, almost every line begins with these two words. I think this is to keep the original mood I described above, the idea of an adult teaching a child words in the most basic of ways. However, as the poem continues, Margaret Atwood describes the world as "fuller/ and more difficult than I have said". For awhile, she abandons the repitition of the words "this is", in favour of a more freestyle poem. In this part of the poem, she is moving to more advanced ideas that just "this is", she is moving to the learning that she is undergoing, still as an adult, and relates to the child more. "Once you have learned these words/ You will learn that there are more/ Words than you can ever learn." If there are more words than you can ever learn, adults are clearly still learning every day. Margaret Atwood has suggested with this idea that she is a peer, not a teacher.
Overall, I think this poem is a reflection on people teaching other people, but no one knowing everything. We are all learning all the time. And when we teach the younger generation, we should be reminded of how far we have come, but also how far we have to go. We all have to start somewhere.
