These poems of desire, loss, and revenge explore lives caught in the gravity of their own orbit. Haunting, distinctive, and sensual, The Shape of a Forest has unblinking scope. This sophisticated debut collection moves from the historical to the contemporary: Genghis Khan surveys his territory while Amelia Earhart disappears to myth. The Belvedere Apollo is dug up heralding the onset of the Renaissance as a tiger meets a foe in a Siberian forest, the Pendle witches are hung in Lancashire, and in tsunami-struck Japanese gardens, South Sea islands, and New York hotel rooms, lives are loosened like milk teeth. The Shape of a Forest is a powerful survey of life and of human experience that spans centuries and the continents.