If we are the forest the animals dream

The poems in Patrick Cahill's If we are the forest the animals dream delight in their invention, at times enigmatic and surreal, at times brimming with longing and absence, always penetrating in their precision and astonishing in their turns of phrase. The iconic image of a footbridge in Mexico with which the collection opens establishes a motif these poems revolve around: the liminal realms we traverse alone from mystery to mystery. Other poems seek reconnection in nature and the animals of the title, in music, and in the landscapes and myths of the American West. Ultimately, this is a collection about language, the bridge with which we suture the fragments of our experience and our world.