Fire Index
Poems
Fire Index measures the interior life of a survivor against the world she creates through her own fractured marriage, motherhood, and religion. Told in fragments, using hybrid and persona, Breitland confronts the trauma of her brother’s death, her father’s abuse, and the complicated relationships to her sister, mother, and womanhood. She reckons with her complicit, and often dishonest life, and how walking out from the burning construct demands her full attention, forgiveness, responsibility.
Bethany Breitland was born in northern Indiana. Her people are cult members, truckers, doctors, child-mothers, and business tycoons. She has lived, studied, and taught on the West Coast, the South, and New England. Breitland earned her undergrad degree from Pepperdine University, and her MFA from Vermont College. As an educator and activist, she has worked for over 20 years concerning women’s rights and the LGBTQ community. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, recipient of various poetry prizes, this is her first full length book of poems. She lives with her children and her partner in Vermont
