Morning in the Burned House

“The Small Cabin” by Margaret Atwood (1970)

In this poem, published in Procedures for the Underground (1970), Atwood’s speaker recalls how “[t]he house [they] built gradually / from the ground up when [they] were young / […] burned down” (Lines 1-3). As in “Morning in the Burned House,” the speaker feels that the “house is still there in [them]” (Line 7), although it exists in several different forms. Sometimes the house is intact, and sometimes there is nothing but “blackened earth” (Line 20). Often, the house “will blaze and crumple / suddenly in [their] mind” (Lines 13-14), with the speaker’s “earlier / selves outlined in flame” (Lines 17-18) within it. This serves as an antecedent to the image of the burning child self in “Morning in the Burned House.” Both poems address a sense of longing after loss, with the speaker in “The Small Cabin” wondering where the physical building and the emotional description go as time passes.

“Two Dreams” by Margaret Atwood (1995)

This poem is placed in Section IV of Morning in the Burned House, which is considered by most scholars to largely serve as an elegy to Carl Atwood. The poem’s speaker, most presume, is Atwood herself, who “dream[s] [her] father twice” (Line 2) during the “seven days before his death” (Line 1).