The House That Fire Built by Kirk Glaser
Praise for The House That Fire Built
A house a family inherits that fills their nights and days with nightmare visions and haunting events. A house that burns to the ground and leaves them spinning in mysteries. The House That Fire Built tells the story of the poet and his wife seeking healing and insight as they struggle to protect themselves and their young daughter against menacing assaults from the human and supernatural worlds. Even when an arsonist is discovered, the criminal’s story only peels back greater mysteries about the forces circling the house. This house and arsonist possessed by what? And why? Is it hungry ghosts circling the death of a domineering father who died in the house? A secret loss buried by the former owners? Wounds going back to this land taken from the first peoples of California’s Santa Cruz Mountains? What in themselves led them to step into this world? As the couple is pulled deeper into the disturbing and sometimes violent mysteries of this house, their resilience and sense of reality pushed to the limits, they slowly come to see how the forces of destruction may also be a kind of salvation.
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Glaser’s writing beautifully balances the uncanny atmosphere of the house’s haunted memories and the devastating aftermath of the fire with moments of radical vulnerability, making the emotional stakes of the story deeply personal as this family turns devastating loss into a bridge for healing and insight. The House that Fire Built invites readers to walkthrough the fire of life with a wise, courageous practice in mind—to be a witness to our lives moment by moment and cross the threshold of suffering, no matter how painful that might be. This skillfully crafted collection of poems weaves a tale of resilience, redemption, and forgiveness that deepens our sense of humanity.
—Juan Velasco-Moreno, author of Massacre of the Dreamers (poems), Enamorado: The Story of Prince Bodhidharma (novel), and 1988: NY-LA (memoir).
Compelling, accessible, and remarkably honest, The House That Fire Built is filled with stark, realistic poems that paint an intimate portrait of loss, family, and the ever-present need for empathy. Each poem maps out the human heart in relation to that larger earth heart, in all their internal conflicts, with precision and grace, imbuing the smallest human details with authenticity and layered meanings. Overflowing with vivid and accessible language, The House That Fire Built is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally engaging, reminding us of the beautiful complexities of being human.
Part narrative mystery, part meditation on loss, trust and acceptance, The House That Fire Built toggles between literal and figurative fire with dextrous verse and vivid storytelling. As I read, I kept recalling the relayed dialectic early in the book—“Abundance. Futility./What is wished for./What is.”—and how it informs so much of our experience. Glaser proposes, “After fire and dust/what is a life?” As I came to the end, I had my own questions: Can grief at once be caused by fire and be the fire itself? What are the true sources that ignite the fires in our lives? And where will asking such questions even lead? The beauty of this book lies in its awareness that wisdom is ultimately evidenced in our queries, not our decrees.
The House That Fire Built
by Scott Withiam
$21.95, paperback, 120 pp
ISBN-13: 978-1-952335-99-0
