“Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet”

• Originally Published: 2009
• Form/Meter: Prose poem
• Literary Devices: Parable, repetition and parallelism, imagery
• Central Concern: The poem explores the impact of greed on the natural world and on humankind.

Margaret Atwood, Poet

• Bio: Born in 1939; a native of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; graduate of Victoria College and Harvard University; writes poems, novels, short stories, and essays; recipient of the Franz Kafka International Literary Award, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Booker Prize, among other awards

Other Works: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985); The Blind Assassin (2002); Oryx and Craik (2008)

THEMES

• Environmentalism
• Greed
• Religion