Set in a castle and on its grounds in Brittany, "The Little Field of Self" is one long poem comprised of individual poems that articulate the essence of devotion and the conflict within the devoted. With surprising inventiveness and technical skill, and without ornamentation, self-consciousness, or self-display, Doreen Gildroy has forged an original poetic style that renders inner being authentically and convincingly.

"Prolusion"
This is my kitchen.
I looked around.
You think I would have noticed before
that it was safe.
(I started to feel.)
What I wanted first
was color.
I intended terra cotta,
but the paint turned
twice as vibrant:
true orange.
(And then I became used to
boldness.)
Doreen Gildroy's second book of poems is a marvel of lyric exactitude. On the surface a book about a man and a woman trying to conceive a child, "Human Love" is more deeply an attempt to focus on the process of human creativity in general and, ultimately, the desire to remake...