Description

Blair, paperback

Publication Date: April 5, 2022

Publisher Marketing:Winner of the Wren Poetry Prizeselected by final judge Ada Limn, Caitlin Scaranos second full-length collection isThe Necessity of Wildfire.It begins, To not harm / each other is not enough. I want to love you / so much that you have no before. These poems chase a singular, thorny question:how does where and who we came from shape who and how we love?Judge Ada Limn says the resulting collection is hungry, clear-eyed, tough, and generous.

Though originally from the South, Scaranos imagination is galvanized by the Pacific Northwestfloods and wildfires, the Salish Sea and the North Cascades, and the humans and animals whose lives intersect and collide there. In this collection, Scarano reckons with a legacy of violence on both sides of her family, the death of her estranged father, the unraveling of two long-term relationships, the complexity of sexuality, and her decision not to have children. With fierce lyricality, these poemsstories without monsters, / stories without moralsresist both redemption and blame, yet call in mercy.