Jaan Kaplinski is Estonia's outstanding poet, revered in the Baltic States and Scaandinavia and now acquiring a wider international renown as poet, philosopher and politician. His previous books of poetry have gained recognition in Britain and The Wandering Border was joint winner of the Poetry Society's European Poetry Translation Prize. In Through the Forest, Kaplinski pursues some of his favourite themes, reasserting the logical absurdities produced by borders and the human need for clear, sharp divisions. Once again he demonstrates that rare blend of simplicity and intellectual rigour that is one of his hallmarks. This is the journal of a year which takes as its starting point the free-flowing natural and domestic worlds. In it, Kaplinski attempts to write himself free of restrictions to thought and art, free of art, free of the encumbrances of his own self. Mixing poetry and prose, this is an extraordinarily exhilarating work of art.