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). In both dream visions, the landscape is similar to that in “Morning in the Burned House.” In the first dream, the father is by the “shore” (Line 3) and then wanders into the water of the “lake” (Line 6). In the second dream, it is fall, and the speaker is with family near “the small cabin that burned down” (Line 16) while the father “walks away” (Line 26). In both dreams, the speaker tries to rescue him but finds that he cannot be reached, which is symbolic for the loss of the actual father through death.

The speaker’s discussion of the second dream has particular bearing on “Morning in the Burned House,” as they note that the dream is particularly vivid, “not blurred […] but exact” (Lines 19-20). Every object is seen in “the way they were” (Line 20), much like how the objects in the latter poem’s cabin are remembered for their specificity. This feels painful, as there is no way to recover the experience in real life and to hold the father as he was. For the speaker, this makes “such dreams […] relentless” (Line 21), a feeling revisited in “Morning in the Burned House.”

“A Fire Place” by Margaret Atwood (1995)

“A Fire Place” from Section V of Morning in the Burned House is placed just a few spaces before the titular poem and deals with the ramifications of a fire’s aftermath. At first, it seems to be a poem about nature, but there is a clear human component. The action takes place “where the lightning fire one time / almost got [the speaker]” (Lines 1-2) and “heroic youngish / (now dead) men” (Lines 2-3) fought it, which may be an allusion the speaker’s now-deceased father. Afterward, the burned land is like “a gash […] A scar” (Line 8). 

Atwood’s speaker goes on to say that the Earth engages in a process of renewal in which “[i]t rips openings in itself, which it struggles / (or not) to skin over” (Lines 21-22). The speaker clearly notes that this is a natural and constructive (if painful) process, which creates a “sticky new forest” (Line 19). It is only the human observer who names the destruction or gives it negative meaning: “Only we can regret / the perishing of the burned place. / Only we could call it a wound” (Lines 24-26).