Prescribed Burn - by Sara Biel (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Prescribed Burn is a collection of poems that trace the complicated nature of love and pain. It is a close exploration of the relational landscapes between parents and children, friends and lovers, even the self and society. These poems delve into the joy of connection and the bravery necessary to change, to choose love and life in our darkest moments. This book chronicles the human struggle to decipher what to hold dear, what must be nurtured and what must be destroyed in order for new growth to blossom.

Review Quotes

In Sara Biel's debut chapbook collection, Prescribed Burn, poems document the emotional territory of what it means to be human with compassion and vulnerability. One theme of Biel's lyrical work is the revealing and unraveling of secrets. In "Telling," she writes "Some secrets don't age but calcify / breathe quietly, fold hands / lay claim with flat little smiles." Her language is both delicate and fierce, explorations of grief, motherhood, strength, and survival. The titular poem, "Prescribed Burn," tells the reader, "Sometimes / a door needs to slam / before it can close. / Sometimes / they burn fields so / something new might grow." Here are poems that embody the writer's love for the world.

-Maw Shein Win (Storage Unit for the Spirit House, Omnidawn, 2020)

Sara Biel's invitation to enter a poetic space of experience and possibility comes by way of acknowledgment in the first line of the first poem of her book, Prescribed Burn. The poet offers a point of human observation that turns in on itself. Everyone needs a window, is the vista point provided to the reader, see what it means to live, to break, to have regret, and to ponder the politics of pain and the various realities of suffering, our own and that of others, and of course tender hope. It's thrilling to see Biel's book enter the world at a time of such heartbreak and great possibility.

-MK Chavez ( Dear Animal, Nomadic Pres, 2017)