HIGH FIRE DANGER
My debut book of poems, written in response to the Black Summer fires of 2019-2020.
Trenorden’s voice is vitrified by the emergency, her steady gaze indispensable.
Sparse and urgent, moving and attentive, these poems blaze with climate fury and tend the living shoots of survival.
Essential reading for our times.
- Jennifer Mills
Written in response to the Black Summer fires of 2019-2020, this collection of poems zooms in and out of varying perspectives - from someone looking back at their home in the rear-view mirror as they leave in a hurry, to satellite images revealing the sweeping scale of the burnt land, to a scorched forest returning to life months later.
Carefully crafted vignettes allow the reader to move beyond the news bites that confront us every day, to a more spacious consideration of the many ways our lives have been impacted by wild weather events like the devastating fires of Black Summer.
As wild weather events become more frequent, I hope we can find ways to come together to make sense of the new world we find ourselves in. The book launch in October 2024 was a reminder of how art can bring people together to make healing connections in these turbulent times.
HIGH FIRE DANGER
is a powerful collection of poetry about
the most intense and catastrophic fire season on record in our country.
None of us is left unaffected by the 2019-20 Black Summer fires, and many remain traumatised. We were confronted with the images and stories of unimaginable suffering and loss of life. It is hard to imagine that such an event could be repeated, but we know it will.
How to fathom this? How do we respond - or even think about adapting to climate disruption, and its impacts on our lives?
Emma has chosen to step inside the experience as a witness. She has taken what she saw and read and heard about the Black Summer fires, and skillfully crafted poetry that gives voice to the trees, and animals and people directly affected, so that we never forget them.
Her poems say - Remember this. Remember me.
- Sue Fielding