Fire Tongue

In Fire Tongue, the poems are precise and unsparing as they probe old questions of how and why the unspeakable enters our lives. In terse, suspenseful language and lines that are as light as their subjects they carry are heavy, indeed ominous, Sesling looks for hope, for what can redeem us. The poet finds the answer in our ability to listen, to feel, to own a conscience, and to value life. -Afaa Michael Weaver Poet Zvi Sesling is at a point in life where there is much more in his past than in his future. In "Fire Tongue" there is delicate balance of the past, present and speculation of what is to come. Sesling fearlessly faces what we all feel deep in our marrow - our own mortality. As a highly skilled poet with a gimlet eye, Sesling pulls this off with a mixture of humor and pathos. No word is wasted... life is too short for that... Sesling, my friends, is well acquainted with the night. -Doug Holder Ibbetson Street Press Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing/Endicott College Fire Tongue takes us on a journey down Zvi Sesling's "road of sorrows." Here is madness, pain, cities of the dead, remnants of the lost, vast fields of suffering, outcroppings of cruelty, deserts of war and violence. With a dream-like clarity and precision reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch, Sesling shows us what we cannot deny about our nature, our history, our times. This is poetry as ritual incantation, a fiery tongue in its own right, teaching us how to navigate and thus perhaps begin to understand our harsh and bloody terrain. -Fred Marchant Author of The Looking House (Graywolf Press)