Shortly after C.D. Wright was commissioned to write a short poetic essay about a single beech tree, she became engulfed in "beech-consciousness," and her creative powers went into overdrive. What was to be a straight-forward, time-defined writing assignment became a passionate obsession that intertwined with all strata of her life. Wright sought out and visited scores of beeches, interviewed arborists, took field notes and photographs, and researched the history of the species. Completed just before her unexpected death in 2016, Casting Deep Shade is an exhaustive poetic encyclopedia of humanity's shared history with the beech, encompassing autobiography and American history, etymologies and folklore. Casting Deep Shade extends outwards in every direction towards the interconnectedness and shared fate of all living things. In the face of loss--past, present, and future--Wright's final work demonstrates the power of words to conserve, preserve, and bare witness. Illustrated by a dozen photographs taken by artist Denny Moers.