Reviewers of Stewart’s poetry have sometimes commented on the denseness and opacity of her poetic language. However, the reviewer for Publishers Weekly writes that The Forest is marked by “an aura of mystery,” with narratives “reminiscent of fairy tales.” Although the reviewer had reservations about some of the poems in which Stewart becomes “self-consciously literary,” his or her overall assessment was highly favorable, calling the book “a rare phenomenon in recent poetry,” filled with poems that “require several readings” but that do not lose intrigue upon rereading.

Carmine G. Simmons in American Book Review comments, “One can easily become disoriented within the dark, frightening recesses of . . . The Forest.” Simmons notes specifically of the poem “The Forest” that the “somber voice” heard in the poem is similar to that found elsewhere in the collection. The voice, notes Simmons, belongs to “A kind of stunned, perhaps entranced speaker . . . who is able to apprehend reasons for remembering the forest but who cannot quite muster up the appropriate reaction to the memories stored there.” However, he argues that the “urgency of the . . . [poem] is not well served by the speaker’s sleepy imperatives.” For Simmons, this muted voice constitutes a flaw in the collection as a whole. Stewart’s use of repetition, says Simmons, “works well to reinforce the mystical nature of such a recollection of the past,” but sometimes interferes with the clarity of meaning.