The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Laméris, Danusha. “Bonfire Opera.” 2017 issue of The American Poetry Review.

Note that all parenthetical citations refer to the line number from which the quotation is taken.

"Bonfire Opera" (originally published in The American Poetry Review in 2017 before being included in Laméris' 2020 collection of the same name) is a narrative poem that concerns beauty, human expression, and the longing for freedom. This free verse poem consists of a single stanza of 30 lines. Laméris layers the past with the present as the speaker reflects on her memories of a folk opera singer in her community. The collection won the 2021 Northern California Book Award and was a finalist for the 2021 Patterson Poetry Prize. As the title suggests, the collection brings together paradoxes with regard to landscapes, performance, and the human spirit.