"The leaves fall, or is it snow? Ralph is stuck in a swamp on the enemy's wasteland. He sings a Pig Song or two. Pig [Swamp] Songs is a work which listens to the world without striving neurotically after character and plot. It eludes definition. Rooney's writing is in a vein where as much is received as projected. He doesn't shout at you. He engages only with love, loss, death and the possibility of the infinite. The Pig Songs are the echo we crave, proof of our connectedness to a universe that exists beyond the fragile, disposable bodies in which we can seem helplessly enclosed. They are the mark, the stain, the rhythm of our common blood, of family, friends, of love." -- from the introduction by Simon Usher