Flames and Fire

It's better to attach life experiences to poems than to let them fly high and out of sight. Literature worth resources speaks to our guts. More specifically, when groupings of words, like these one hundred instances in Flames and Fire, make us feel uncomfortable, we're on to something good. Writing's ability to interact with our viscera can save us, or, in the least, can shepherd us toward achieving vital goals. Whereas it's hardly useful to lark about, perusing worlds where venomous wildebeests run amok or where two-headed hedgehogs rule, it's equally ineffective to stay closeted while attempting to legitimize the entirety of civilization. We might not be able to be friends with everyone, but we should, in general, manifest a little understanding and a lot of tolerance. Accordingly, the questions raised by the poems in Flames and Fire are important. More exactly, this assemblage puts forth the idea that each of us, individually, and all of us, collectively, ought, immediately, to take accountability for our culture's choices. This book further suggests that whether we are in the social minority or in the majority, our vociferations make a difference. On balance, neither leaders nor insurgents can synthesize communal harmony where personal or public views emphasize contrast. Sadly, our protracted hunt for incommensurabilities creates the type of strife that leads to riots, government brutality, and terrorism. We win only when we look upon each other favorably. Hence, at the same time as we follow the trajectories of our individual stations, we're helped by concurrently looked right and left toward other folks' situations. Forbearance is great; nonetheless, it's smiling and acting with kindness that are phenomenal.