In his second collection, Casteen moves inward from the physical labor and vernacular culture that shaped his first book, Free Union, yet continues to focus on landscape and human relationships. These poems dwell in the music of language, the hard truths of those who are no longer young, and the pleasures of the reflective life.

JOHN CASTEEN teaches at Sweet Briar College. He lives in Earlysville, Virginia. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, his poems have appeared in Ploughshares, the Georgia Review, the Iowa Review, Shenandoah, and other journals. He has contributed prose to Slate, VQR, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.