Birds, “coated with fallout,” deliver poison from Africa to Finland (from the epigram at the beginning of “How We Were Spared”) albeit innocently. How little we know about things — the speaker wonders if “dusk & dust / have the same root,” as well as what caused “the auger birds // we brought to the hospital” to die “calmly / & of something untraceable.” “How We Were Spared” creates its own strange superstitions: “Firefighters are kept in the hospital / so that their radiance will not wither the birches // or cause children to be born without faces” (31). Finally, a remedy for “just this occasion” — “mixing goose fat / with cinnamon in a clean bronze bowl” (p. 32). The occasion is less important than these regressive steps, and the persistent presence of birds.

…Cheney is simultaneously poet, scientist and reporter, showing us that Nature, whether damaged or redeemed, exists in a realm that humans understand as well as one completely outside of our consciousness.

Indeed, birds are a predominant theme in Here be Monsters. Cheney delights us with their names: pileated woodpecker, bourbon turkey, red-shafted northern flicker. Birds, like amphibians and insects, are also a sign of the health of planet Earth — a decline in the bird population signals a decline in the environment’s ability to sustain them, and ultimately, us. Extending this metaphor brings the subtle moral of this book to the surface: we ignore the birds at our peril, for as they go, so do we.

The environmental message in these poems never dominates them, though it’s impossible to miss. We feel Nature’s push, as in “Lord God Bird:”

The tiger appears later to an American soldier mired in the DMZ, dodging mines. Here the question seems to be, how long can we exploit the environment until it turns on us, bringing disease and violence? The vision of the last tiger embodies the world we have irrevocably changed. Clearly this retaliation from Nature has already begun, but in the hands of a poet with Cheney’s sensibility, it becomes less a tragedy and more an adventure, or a puzzle to solve. The poems make surprising connections — some observational, some imaginative — but what Cheney does with those connections summons a recognition from the reader that is not at all surprising. We have experiences like these every day — something moves just beyond the scope of our vision, a dead animal inexplicably turns up on our doorstep, or a seemingly healthy friend is stricken with a rare disease. Here be Monsters finds where and how they link to one another, unraveling their relationships with a clear and detached eye.

Rarely does the poet allow himself full participation in his poems. Instead, he keeps a journalistic distance — dry-eyed at the funeral, recording the reactions of the mourners. This approach allows him to record the precise and haunting details that so dazzle the reader — Cheney is simultaneously poet, scientist and reporter, showing us that Nature, whether damaged or redeemed, exists in a realm that humans understand as well as one completely outside of our consciousness. If this lack of involvement seems cold, rest assured that these poems are not only deeply moving, but also filled with a delightful, subtle irony that catches the reader off guard. Here be Monsters is not an elegy for a passing world, but guide to the present, and future one.