35 pages • 1 hour read
Margaret AtwoodSiren Song
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“The Circle Game” by Margaret Atwood (1964)
“The Circle Game” is a poem in seven parts that echoes some of the themes of entrapment and repetition “Siren Song” addresses. The poem is long and lean, and takes a much more somber tone than “Siren Song.” It serves as an interesting emotional contrast to the humor and cunning of “Siren Song.”
“Song of the Worms” by Margaret Atwood (1974)
“Song of the Worms” is another poem from “Songs of the Transformed” in the collection, You Are Happy. The worm is an earthly image next to the mythological siren, and speaks in a plaintive voice denoting an opposite experience: “[W]e have sung but no one has listened” (Line 6).
“When All Hands Were Called to Make Sail” by Rachel Zucker (2009)
The poet Rachel Zucker reimagined Persephone in her collection, Eating in the Underworld (2003), and frequently considers myth in her work. While “When All Hands Were Called to Make Sail” does not overtly reimagine myth, the poet recalls it with references such as “the hero abandoned the ferry for the real sea” (Line 6) and a six-armed figure with “breasts covered in blue scales” (Line 12). It is a beautiful treatment of myth as a way to understand contemporary life.
Further Literary Resources
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse by Anne Carson (2016)
In Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse, poet, Greek scholar, and essayist Anne Carson writes a romance novel repositioning the relationship between Geryon—a monster in Greek myth—and divine hero Herakles. In Carson’s work, Geryon is a boy and the narrative, while incorporating fragments of the lyric poet Stesichorus's poem “Geryoneis,” is a contemporary take on myth.
At the heart of legend”: Feminist Revisionist Mythology in Twentieth-Century Poetry by Madison Rozells (2020)
This is an honors thesis and capstone project that discusses how the poetry of Margaret Atwood, Rita Dove, Louise Glück, and Eavan Boland revise myth to resist the idea of myth as static, but an art form that can expose new or contemporary truths. The author analyzed several poems, exploring their attempt to find female voice and experience through ancient art.
"The Laugh of the Medusa" by Hélène Cixous (1976)
In this essay, French feminist critic Hélène Cixous encourages women to read and use their bodies to create a way of writing and expressing themselves that diverges from the constraints of transitional patriarchal texts.
“Circe / Mud Poems” from You Are Happy by Margaret Atwood (1974)
“Siren Song” comes from the section of You Are Happy titled, “Songs of the Transformed.” “Circe / Mud Poems” is the third of four sections in the collection. It offers three poems in which Circe considers a different scenario for herself and Odysseus than turning him and his crew into swine.
Listen to the Poem
This recitation of “Siren Song” is by YouTube user The J Sessions. It is interesting to hear a man’s voice reading the poem.
Related Titles
By Margaret Atwood
