Open Fire

Even as they consider the paradoxical properties of fire, its potential both for creativity and for destruction, the poems in this book burn with the intent to illuminate the objects of their contemplation. Open Fire conjures both the violent imperative of a firing squad, and the communal warmth radiating from a campfire. In persona and ekphrastic forms, Gorlin jimmies the lock of her identity to pull off daring acts of imaginative immersion and poetic ventriloquism as she adventures into the images of artists, and the lives of figures featured in the Bible, myth, literature, history, biography, fashion design, and current events. Imagine yourself as the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Leda with a surprising assessment of the swan, the World War II photographer Lee Miller in Hitler’s bathtub, the British fashionista Isabella Blow, and even Death itself mourning over the Covid epidemic. 

Open Fire is Deb Gorlin's third collection of poetry. Critics say this latest collection is “in the world and of it—intimate and untidy” and remarkable for its humanity and loving attention to our collective lives. Animated by a vastness of mind, and a dry wit, the poems are sensuous, urgent, and gorgeous.