A Fire in the Head contains two complementary works, both of which emerged out of the aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake in Japan.The title poem-sequence takes the 5-7-5 form of the haiku to create an accumulating narrative of life adjusting to altered circumstance. The essay 'What Are Poets For?. . .' explores the efficacy of art when confronted with calamity, and from within the experience of the catastrophic events offers a response to the question: in a time of need, what use is a poem? ("In these three-line poems, Andrew Fitzsimons has captured what Basho called 'the revelatory light...