POEM OF THE MONTH
June
Villanelle
Gardener’s Ascent by Derek Mueller
Diocletian Upon Being Asked to Return to Rome
You should see these cabbages of mine
fan their generous green leaves…and their size—
massive, stretching in an endless line.
I’m aware an emperor is divine,
and it’s kind of you to call me wise—
you should see these cabbages of mine.
Oh, yes, how the city did shine,
her marble monuments reaching to the skies,
massive, stretching in an endless line,
but here, since I have resigned,
I have secured a valuable prize:
you should see these cabbages of mine,
as plentiful as grapes on the vine,
as big around as one of your thighs—
massive, stretching in an endless line.
I’m afraid I must respectfully decline
to return as emperor, but please, come, rise,
you should see these cabbages of mine,
massive, stretching in an endless line.
Kate Deimling is a poet, writer, and French translator from Brooklyn, New York. An editor at Bracken magazine, Kate recently edited a special feature on French poetry in translation for Atlanta Review. This villanelle appears in her debut poetry collection, which is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in January 2026.
I love villanelles! They’re fun to write and offer great opportunities—and challenges—for rhyming and repetition. In my day job, I’m a French translator, and the villanelle is an old French form, so maybe that has something to do with why I feel drawn to it.
My husband teaches history, and his main area of interest is ancient history. He told me this story about Diocletian, the only Roman emperor to have given up his position voluntarily. So I decided to write a villanelle imagining Diocletian’s side of a conversation with the officials who came to try to persuade him to resume power. The circularity of the form, with the closing lines repeating the two refrain lines, mirrors how Diocletian always returns to his cabbage obsession—such a striking contrast to the exalted position of Roman emperor.
—Kate Deimling
We received over 300 villanelles and I realize it’s no easy feat pulling off this form successfully. Kate Deimling’s “Diocletian Upon Being Asked to Return to Rome” stood out for its music, its narrative cohesion and perfect choice of rhyme and refrain. It’s a villanelle that knows exactly what it’s doing — tight, funny, historically grounded, and still somehow tender. The repetitions do what the best villanelle refrains should do: they deepen, accrue, shift tone just slightly each time until we’re somewhere stranger and wiser than where we began.
And what a premise: a retired Roman emperor refusing to return to power because he’s too busy admiring his vegetables. “You should see these cabbages of mine” is a punchline and a thesis statement and a quasi-prayer. It’s absurd, yes, but also kind of profound. What does it mean to reject empire, to grow something quiet and green instead? I love how this poem walks the line between comic and elegiac — between what we leave behind and what we grow in its place. Turns out, “no” can be a garden. Forget legacy. Forget empire. I’d take those cabbages too — “massive, stretching in an endless line.”
.png)
.png)
