Fire Songs

Summary

Elemental and unflinching, this collection uses fire in all its forms—from the hearthside to the apocalyptic—as a lens through which to examine violence, transformation, desire, and the darkest reaches of human experience. Harsent's poetry has the focused intensity of opera—he is a celebrated librettist—and these poems command the same compressed dramatic power as music-theatre. The collection is among the most visceral and formally accomplished of recent years.