The story I remember about Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” is that it took her a decade to write. She lost a friend, and in her notebook, she wrote about the accident with “villanelle?” in the margin. Whether or not my memory is accurate, the villanelle as a vehicle for grief makes sense. There’s something about the repetition that mimics the way we mourn, taking a step forward only to retreat three.
Heather Foster’s poem “Donkeys” is not a strict villanelle, but it perfectly captures the grief of two sisters burying their animals. Even as the girls admit that they loved the “milk-eyed monstrosities,” they do what needs to be done. They are steady in their work. It’s hard not to admire their intensity just as it's hard not to admire the poet’s control: “The nothing we’ve said all day comes to this— // It takes an hour and dirt’s the only sound.”
“Donkeys” by Heather Foster was originally published in The Country Dog Review in the Fall/Winter 2011-2012 issue.
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