Little Ease

Taking as its title the term for a 4x4 cell in the Tower of London, McCollough's third collection, divided into six thematically organized sections (""Hospitality,"" ""Penalty""), explores ideas of hospitality and of ethical living as a form of imprisonment. The relationship to the self, the beloved, and the world are viewed through this lens: ""I am like my marriage / which is like / a good war."" Curiously, prisons in the punitive sense are never explored, nor are the contemporary politics of incarceration, causing the overriding metaphor to feel at times indulgent and even irresponsible. That said, many of the poems are affecting and beautiful. In ""The Seventh Poem of Jan Vandermeer,"" the poet writes, ""The gusting snow in streetlight swarm of bees./...// Old wobbly world tearing down you make me hate me."" While the author employs many stylistic tricks (such as spattering of words and letters across the page, and unconventional punctuation) that are starting to show their age, it is in the poet's quieter, less over-intended moments that this collection shines: ""OK to the reservoir / as far as from the rock / to the shovel / the gaze of these strange birds / on this blue bowl I broke / with a flail // The bowl I loved.""