Sheck's trademark long lines are here but in poems of much shorter length in an odd-book size (square) that respects the long width of the line but the shorter length of the poem, which is refreshing after the dense poem lengths of The Willow Grove and Black Series (which also suffered from font and spacing that were perhaps too small and condensed).

These poems investigate a state of mind (captivity) more than anything, the mind at work, the mind reflecting upon itself, and the mind in relation to the skin that encases it. It's not a simple mind-body dichotomy at play, though. It's the act of thinking on the page that is most captivating, in language that is at once eloquent and varied in its rhythms that I found myself reading out loud as if under a spell.