Firebird

Kythe Heller's Firebird sequence probes the capacity of the human spirit to endure under extreme conditions. Here fire is both a destructive and a unifying force, altering people and landscapes. Runaways, the sick and the poor, a forest and a smoldering mattress - these stunning images burn themselves into the reader's imagination. The female body becomes the site of trauma and myth, a place where "everything is burning, has been and is always burning."A poet, essayist, multimedia artist, and doctoral candidate at Harvard's Divinity School, Heller has published work in The American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, Tricycle, and elsewhere.Fiercely intelligent and relentlessly visceral, Firebird renders the world with singular clarity: "there were so many things that would look-nice-if they were seen through flames."Fanny Howe says: "This collection of poems is like the conference of birds, feathered angles and colors and converse. It's a beautiful unusual book you can look inside for a story, or pick a page to feel the heat. Suddenly fastened on enclosure in rooms with real people, the work is then released and let fly to the nearest summit."