THE LITTLE FIELD OF SELF

Set, the back cover tells us, "in a castle and on its grounds in Brittany," this book-length serial poem in page-length lyric parts uses short lines to convey the inwardness produced by leisure: "A restless night./ Now, lying in bed with the/ murmur of rain/ after a day not too/ complicated. (We had decided/ not to go out.)" The stanza breaks there, but readers treading upon this guarded field will find the rain gentle and the grass well-cared-for throughout, as Gildroy's speaker finds "What my constants are,/ an evenness, a power."