The 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, known as Black Summer, burned vast areas of forest and bushland after extreme heat and drought. Smoke darkened major cities and travelled across oceans, while people, animals, and ecosystems suffered enormous losses. The fires made climate change visible in the air.

Australian poets responded with elegies for animals, homes, ash skies, and damaged country, often alongside renewed attention to Aboriginal fire knowledge. Black Summer strengthened contemporary climate poetry by making smoke, extinction, and settler land management unavoidable subjects.