25 Best L.A.-Centric Books Of 2025! “Fifty-eight writers come together in this new anthology to rise from the ashes of the January 2025 Los Angeles fires in Altadena and the Palisades. About a dozen writers in the collection lost their homes and there are some gut wrenching reflections on the unprecedented tragedy. There are also beautiful tributes to the many multigenerational Black Angelenos who have called Altadena home for over a century.” —L..A. Taco

“As the whole world watched, Los Angeles residents in late January and early February 2025 saw walls of fire rapidly descending on the city, their homes and their lives, propelled by winds of 100 miles an hour or more. The poems in this volume reach deep into this horrendous experience and at the same time help us rediscover our common humanity in the face of the socially generated ecological rupture that distinguishes our time. I found myself reading the poems in Catching Fire again and again, recognizing that what I was experiencing through the miracle of art was something historically universal, to be held onto and remembered: people caught in a “climate-crisis Pompei” as Susan Auerbach put it. The book ends with a call to rebuild. But the message is clear: what needs to be rebuilt are not simply the homes lost in Los Angeles but our entire social relation to the earth and to each other. Here there is hope.” —John Bellamy Foster, author, The Dialectics of Ecology

“I imagine that someday it will be possible to read these poems for literary merit. In the context of the irreplaceable cultural legacies that were burned, I make my own list of loss. In the context of friends out of their homes, I make a list of community pain. Poets Griffin and Modiano are practiced and talented curators of the written word. They've assembled a heartfelt collection of commemoration. These poems left a mark.” —K Shuck, 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco Emerita

“In this time of climate change and the apocalyptic weather events it can bring, we have moved beyond writing about its devastation—fires, floods, magna earthquakes—to write out of the experience itself. In Catching Fire: The Los Angeles Wildfires, poets who live where the flames consumed land, treasure and human life give us poems as powerful as the destruction they survived. But this anthology offers a different sort of power, raw and intimate. Art redeems the story, from this book’s cover image, in which the remains of a charred typewriter confronts us, to the final poem. I hope this book finds the vast readership it deserves.” —Margaret Randall, author, The Calendar’s Whim and Letters that Breathe Fire

S.A. Griffin lives, loves, and works in Los Angeles. He has been publishing books, chapbooks, broadsides and recordings on his Rose of Sharon imprint since 1988. He is the winner of the Firecracker Award for The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (co-editor), and the first recipient of Beyond Baroque Literary Art Center Distinguished Service Award. Wanda Coleman named S.A. Griffin Best Performance Poet for the LA Weekly. His most recent book of poetry is Pandemic Soul Music (Punk Hostage Press).

While a resident of New York City, Richard Modiano became active in the literary community connected to the Poetry Project where he came to know Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, William S. Burroughs, and Ted Berrigan. In 2001 he was a programmer at Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, joined the Board of Trustees in 2006, and from 2010 to 2019, he served as Executive Director. The Huffington Post named him as one of 200 people doing the most to promote poetry in the United States. Richard Modiano is the winner of the 2022 Joe Hill Prize for labor poetry and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. His most recent poetry collection, The Forbidden Lunchbox, is published by Punk Hostage Press.

Table of Contents

Introduction – S.A. Griffin

There is no hope – Z

Hurricane of Fire – Dig Wayne

In the Shadow of the Unicorn – Puma Perl

Dateline Altadena, California – Suan Auerbach

What Was Waiting at the Front Door – Kathleen Florence

Perello Family’s Journey to Re-Establish Our Lives (January 2025) – Cynthia Perello

And This Too Shall Burn... – A.K. Toney

Catastrophe... – Dan Saucedo

The Ojai Fire – Phoebe MacAdams

A Sense of Urgency – Cathie Sandstrom

Non-Sonnet for Burning – Iris De Anda

Fire Ecology – Mike Sonksen

Ice and Fire – David L. Ulin

ghost town – Nicca Ray

My Sadness is as Great as a Mountain: A Haibun – Teresa Mei Chuc

Perello Family’s Journey to Re-Establish Our Lives (February 23, 2025) – Cynthia Perello

Water Hose Man – Pam Ward

Ashes Over Angels – Richard Modiano

Fire Head – Rich Ferguson

Sudden – Michelle Bitting

What Remains – Ellyn Maybe

Walking Home on 14th Street – Hilda Weiss

L.A. Fires and Me – Marilyn N. Robertson

The Eaton Fire, Altadena, CA, January 7-8, 2025 – Mary Anne Berry

Mother Nature Talks Back – Laurel Ann Bogen

Oxygen – Brendan Constantine

A Drive Along the Coast – Harry Northup

A History of Fire Drills – Susan Hayden

Equal Footing – Kat Georges

Winds-Day - Spencer L. Griffin

Snow Born From Flames – Riot Renwick

It Seemed the Sea was Speaking in Tongues – Suzanne Lummis

Canyon Country – Tom Laichas

Wild Fire – Majid Naficy

What I Didn’t Lose in the Great L.A. Fires – Maryrose Smyth

4 Haiku – Land Flowers

Fire Roulette – Jeanette Clough

Perello Family’s Journey to Re-Establish Our Lives (March 17, 2025) – Cynthia Perello

A New Plague – Rick Lupert

Something Thrown Away – Sarah Maclay

Shockproof – Chris Morris

Singed Memories – Jessica M. Wilson

If all my dreams had come true... – Kamla Maya

State Farm Said to Keep a Journal but I Wrote a Poem Instead – Lin Nelson Benedek

Perello Family’s Journey to Re-Establish Our Lives (July 1, 2025) – Cynthia Perello

And Then the Fires Came – Kennon B. Raines

Like a Movie – Jim Natal

Wild winds whipped war... – Mona Jean Cedar

To the Living, Breathing Arsonists, the Molochs of Electricity – Bill Mohr

Rivers of Debris Quilt the Sand at Low Tide – Holaday Mason

The Arsonist – Jeffrey Bryant

And for California, it’s Only June – Beth Ruscio

Wildfires, Redux. – Alexis Rhone Fancher

Ashes at Random – jerry the priest

Antidote for a Firestorm – Lynne Bronstein

I Know Too Well – Gail Wronsky

listening to your playlist while driving made me feel like i was in your car again going around l.a. – jimmy vega

The Renter Key – Steve Hochman

Pagamento – K.R. Morrison

Perello Family’s Journey to Re-Establish Our Lives (July 25, 2025) – Cynthia Perello

WE WILL REBUILD – La Rombé ♪

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS