Amy Holman writes about what is held captive—wild animals by humans or environmental destruction, the self by fear—and what captivates: discoveries, exposures, and mysteries.

From marine life to ultramarine pigment, the self-in-the-world to the world we can’t separate from ourselves, she writes poems that delve into the news, plumb the past, and play with refrains to catalogue absurdities, recklessness, lapis lazuli, shyness, and wonder.