Before she became one of the world's most important and loved novelists, Margaret Atwood was a poet. Dearly is her first collection in over a decade. It brings together many of her most recognisable and celebrated themes, but distilled -- from minutely perfect descriptions of the natural world to startlingly witty encounters with aliens, from pressing political issues to myth and legend. By turns moving, playful and wise, the poems gathered in Dearly are about absences and endings, ageing and retrospection, but also about gifts and renewals. They explore bodies and minds in flux, as well as the everyday objects and rituals that embed us in the present. Werewolves, sirens and dreams make their appearance, as do various forms of animal life and fragments of our damaged environment. Dearly is a pure Atwood delight, and long-term readers and new fans alike will treasure its insight, empathy and humour.

Late poems -- Ghost cat -- Salt -- Passports -- Blizzard -- Coconut -- Souvenirs -- The Tin Woodman gets a massage -- If there were no emptiness -- Health class (1953) -- A genre painting -- Princess clothing -- Cicadas -- Double-entry slug sex -- Everyone else's sex life -- Betrayal -- Frida Kahlo, San Miguel, Ash Wednesday -- Cassandra considers declining the gift -- Shadow -- Songs for murdered sisters: Empty chair ; Enchantment ; Anger ; Dream ; Bird soul ; Lost ; Rage ; Coda: Song -- The dear ones -- Digging up the Scythians -- September mushrooms -- Carving the jacks -- A drone scans the wreckage -- Aflame -- Update on werewolves -- Zombie -- The aliens arrive -- Siren brooding on her eggs -- Spider signatures -- At the translation conference -- Walking in the madman's wood -- Feather -- Fatal light awareness -- Fear of birds -- Short takes on wolves -- Table settings -- Improvisation on a first line by Yeats -- "Heart of the Arctic" -- Plasticene suit: Rock-like object on beach ; Faint hopes ; Foliage ; Midway Island albatross ; Editorial notes ; Sorcerer's apprentice ; Whales ; Little robot ; The bright side -- Tracking the rain -- Oh children -- The twilight of the gods -- This fiord looks like a lake -- One day -- Sad utensils -- Winter vacations -- Hayfoot -- Mr. lionheart -- Invisible man -- Silver slippers -- Within -- Flatline -- Disenchanted corpse -- Dearly -- Blackberries.