Bale Fire is a book in three cycles. The first explores the darker side of communities in decline. The middle is a transposition of elements and characters of the Odyssey to a Scottish hill farm and its neighbours. The final part looks at the idea of harvest and loss. Jim Carruth offers here both a celebration and an elegy.

The poems in this collection address the themes of our time: war, friendship, honesty, violence, humanity and love.

‘These are poems that will last as long as the land and the people they grew from’ - John Glenday