On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies

"A wall came out of the world" and Nelson's poems in On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies invite us to sit down and listen to what is inside of that wall and what was left in the hole when the wall came out. There are forests there, and many voices within those forests still.

Here we enter the "loam of the forest floor, / the ongoing of those unremembered / and those remembered wrong." Though "the world is dying," Nelson's ear is tuned in to the the "echo of abundance," sharing this echo as the poems unfold as a rising undercurrent.

On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies was selected for the 2024 Ottoline Prize.