Burned, by A. E. Stallings

Poem
Authored by
19 August, 2021

I love villanelles, and I love how Stallings follows the rules of the form until she makes the choice to modify that last line (and add a blank line for emphasis, or at least mindfulness).

I love how she invokes the whole of the typical morning - toast, and, sensibly, butter, and then also the morning mail.

There are actually only a few references to burning and smoke, but the whole poem seems infused by the scent, the way everything takes on the burnt smell when something gets blackened in the toaster.

She is so brilliant.

Other poems read today:

Little Donkey - Wendy Cope
Untitled (Sirmio) - Catullus
The More Loving One - Auden
The Hammock - Cecilia Woloch

(Maybe I should have written about The Hammock instead. That was also a fabulous poem.)