This imaginative and colorful collection of more than 150 poems contains work by poets from many Pacific lands as well as from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The poems were gathered especially but not exclusively for young readers. Most were written in English, but a few were translated from their original languages.

Unlike conventional anthologies, Fire in the Sea places the rich traditional and contemporary poetry of Hawai'i and the Pacific (often overlooked by anthologists) alongside better-known works from the East and West. Selected works of art from the collections of the Honolulu Academy of Arts accompany the poems.