In her third column installment, Burtner draws on Sylvia Plath’s ‘sad girl poetry’ to understand the political madness of 2024.

Things often go badly when poets love poets. No matter how many times they read the warnings of sad love poems, they still fall in love with the people who write sad love poems. They won’t listen.

Of course, it’s not just famous people who have discovered Balka’s work. The poems in I Hope You Remember have a universality that appeals to those who may otherwise avoid poetry.