This, my first collection of poetry, started life as a memoir. Over time that memoir morphed into a series of short stories about my first encounters with endangered amimals in wild places over the course of my thirty-year career collaborating with Suzi.

In turn, those tales distilled into the form you have before you now. In this regard my words have been on their own journey.

I never intended to become a poet, yet poetry found me; through the physical process of writing, walking, and reflecting on the draw I feel towards nature in all its forms. I realise now, poetry is about as close to the act of drawing and painting from life as I can get with the written word; in fact, to me both forms help conjure images and in this regard are forged of the same magical matter, a language, I now could not imagine living without.

I simply wish that each poem be stumbled upon, transmitting their unique signals, as each wild encounter was gifted me.

Olly Williams