The Fire Lessons, Tom Henighan’s third book of poetry, is a work of art that can be enjoyed on many levels. Echoes of ballads, nursery rhymes, the one-breath note of haiku, the jagged, startling challenge of contemporary verse, carry the reader into new perspectives of contemporary angst and joy. These poems, a distillation of a life’s experiences, thoughts, and profound engagements with the arts, take the chaos of everyday life and reveal to us the mystery and the music that lie beneath.