Polly Clark shows the complex and often brutal making of a self in the poems of her first collection, from first passions, through losses and disappointments, to attempts to understand and forgive origins. The forces which shape who we are take on many personalities: surgeons, horses, Amazon parrots, Pontius Pilate and huge beetles all have lessons to teach about loss, bereavement and the shaping of a fragile identity. Who decides who we are and what we will be? Her journey encompasses diverse locations, from her native Canada to Hungary and Edinburgh Zoo, from the hospital bed to the zoo enclosure, demonstrating that places can be as important as people in shaping our internal landscape. Poetry Book Society Recommendation.