I love a good campfire. Whether burning birch, oak, pine, or cedar, the aromas are wonderful. I can stare into the flames for hours. Any time I smell a fire, it takes me back.

This poem is a Tirrell Sonnet.
A Tirrell Sonnet was created by Robert Tirrell Leonard, a poet from Woburn, MA. who is also a politician and author of several poetry collections.
The Tirrell Sonnet (an American model), is quite different and has a unique feel to it. It starts with a couplet followed by a tercet, followed by a quatrain, adding the turn with a following tercet and then reversing the order of the repeated couplet as a sort of refrain.
So it is: Couplet + Tercet + Quatrain + Tercet + reversed Couplet.
It features only 3 rhymes (a,b,and c). It is written in iambic pentameter.
This can create an introspective feel to the whole poem.
The rhyme scheme is:
A1, A2 - b,c,b - c,b,b,c - b,c,b - A2, A1,
where the capital letters indicate the repeated verses and the numbers provide identification.

In this one, the volta is a bit subtle, but it moves away from a description of the fire itself, to the connection with location.

This picture was taken by the author himself in September, 2011.

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