Jason Bredle is the author of Smiles of the Unstoppable, Pain Fantasy, and Standing in Line for the Beast, as well as the chapbooks Class Project and A Twelve Step Guide. He lives in Chicago.

Love is a Burning Building is the second collection of what are also known by insiders as "the birthday poems," written as homage to friends, family, colleagues, associates, acquaintances, and contemporaries. In these works, Bear employs a hybrid form of the prose poem, relying on colons to break up phrases, refrains, and ideas, as well as to tear down some of those very same things. This combination results in a masterful balance in which language is exalted. Dancing Bear never loses track of his theme: cycles-renewal, rebirth, regeneration, change, growth, and hope. These poems are...