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Cold Fire: Poems | David Mason in Conversation

Name: Cold Fire: Poems | David Mason in Conversation
Start: 2026-05-28T17:30:00+10:00
End: 2026-05-28T17:30:00+10:00
Location: Fullers Bookshop

About

David Mason’s poetry circles the globe. The urgent and beautiful poems of his new book, Cold Fire, have settings in Australia, India, Greece, Turkey and the American West. A title sequence takes up the Aboriginal practice of cool burning for fire mitigation, and moves to the Ring of Fire, the volcanoes of Mason’s childhood home in the Pacific Northwest—fires of creation and destruction. Here the dream life of art is pitched against human conflict. Here we have poems of family life, aging, and a deep conversation with history and myth. This is a book of light, love, and powerful remembrance from the edge of the world.

David Mason grew up in Bellingham, Washington and has lived in many parts of the world, including Greece and Colorado, where he served as poet laureate for four years. His books of poems began with The Buried Houses, The Country I Remember, and Arrivals. His verse novel, Ludlow, was named best poetry book of the year by the Contemporary Poetry Review and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It was also featured on the PBS NewsHour. He has written a memoir and four collections of essays. His poetry, prose, and translations have appeared in such periodicals as the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Literary Supplement, Poetry, and the Hudson Review. In 2015 Mason published two poetry collections: Sea Salt: Poems of a Decade and Davey McGravy: Tales to Be Read Aloud to Children and Adult Children.

In Conversation with David is Cally Conan-Davies. Cally hails from the island of Tasmania. Her poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, Subtropics, Poetry, Quadrant, The New Criterion, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Sewanee Review, Southwest Review, The Dark Horse, Harvard Review, and many online journals. She lives by the sea.

Join David and Cally at the Afterword cafe.