Ain't Burned All the Bright

The narrator of Ain’t Burned All the Bright spends most of the book struggling to deal with the overwhelming number of terrible things going on in the world. Despite being stuck at home with the rest of his family, he feels isolated and alone and increasingly feels like he is suffocating. Initially, the narrator’s family annoys and confounds him. He is frustrated that his mom won’t change the channel, doesn’t understand why his brother is withdrawing from reality, and worries about his father’s terrifying cough. Due to the lockdown, their home begins to feel like a prison. While his initial attempts to find an “oxygen mask” somewhere in the house fail, he eventually realizes that the answer to the anxiety and dread he feels can be found in family and art.

The narrator’s revelation comes from seeing the “beginning of the begging / of a laugh / that never even bloomed” on his mother’s face (250-55). Two things are significant: first, it was not even an actual laugh that caused his revelation, but the idea of a laugh, a reminder of what her laugh looks and sounds like; and second, the incident completely reframes how he is looking at his mother (and the rest of his family). He realizes that even the suggestion of his mother’s happiness is enough to give him a modicum of hope, and he suddenly starts looking at the rest of his family differently as well. He finds oxygen in the sounds of his brother’s video game, in his sister’s handwriting, and in his “father’s relentless shoulders” (266). These are things that have been there all along and even annoyed him before. He now recognizes their importance: They’re signifiers of his family, that, in their specificity and uniqueness, provide a reminder of the connection that he has with them. They evoke familiarity, comfort, belonging, and safety—all things that he has been sorely missing because of the impact the pandemic and social unrest have had on the family.

The narrator has a similar realization about the healing potential of art. He begins to find oxygen “between the letters” of books unread (294-95), implying the kind of joy and understanding that comes from analyzing and interpreting literature. He also finds oxygen in the way music “makes [him] remember / [his] body is electric cool” (300), suggesting music keeps him in touch with himself, gives him confidence, and reminds him that he has value and worth. Thus, while his family gives him feelings of strength, hope, and belonging, art provides him with meaning and joy, which are arguably just as important to survival.

However, the importance of art is also evident long before the narrator realizes it in Breath Three. Ain’t Burned All the Bright is presented in such a way that it feels like a reproduction of an actual journal that was kept during the pandemic. This suggests that its creation is one way that the narrator attempts to process what is going on and provides him with a way of coping with the things that overwhelm him. Both the prose poetry and the collage-like artwork are the result of the narrator working through his weariness, dread, and anxiety. It is his attempt to process everything that is going on and piece it together in a way that makes it more comprehensible, which reveals that it is not just engaging with the artwork of others that is important to the narrator, but the act of artistic creation as well.

Ain’t Burned All the Bright ends with the family sitting on the couch together. The news broadcast resumes and the same cycle of negative stories is repeated, but the imagery has completely changed. The fire, smoke, and flooding are gone, replaced by clear blue skies and grass, rendered in a bright, vibrant, and hopeful color palette. This suggests that while the world outside the house has not changed, with the strength of his family and the meaning that comes from art and creation, it at least feels a little more manageable.