Burning Season is a book about fire and survival, climate change and nature's defiance. Yvonne Reddick's understanding of climate change is uniquely personal: her father was a petroleum engineer, and many members of her family worked in the fossil fuel industry. The collection speaks of the paradox that her Dad's gift to her was her love of nature and mountain landscapes. The book combines poems with nature diaries and lyric essays to trace an intriguing family history. This family story forms the bedrock of Burning Season.
Burning Season includes a series of vivid, moving and heartfelt poems that explore her grief following her father's death in a hiking accident. These are set against a wider backdrop of ecological loss and heartbreak. Here, too, are poems that celebrate nature's vibrant resilience: planting oak saplings, spotting rare ptarmigan in the Highland winter, imagining life in an underwater city.
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My father weighted a little less than at birth.I carried him in both hands to the pinesAs October brought the burning season.- MUIRBURN
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(Bloodaxe Books, 25 May 2023, e-book, 84 pages, #ARC from the publisher via Edelweiss+)
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I really enjoyed the poems in Burning Season. I especially enjoyed the poems about the poet's grief following her father's death, though not sure 'enjoy is the right word. These poems are powerful, moving, and unforgettable. They are raw. I especially liked Muirburn, He Set Off, December, On The Alaskan Peak We Never Climbed, Translating Mountains From The Gaelic and Fossil Record. This is a powerful collection.
