The poetry of Sridala Swami, a Hyderabad-based writer, is a chiaroscuro of meaning and shadow, clarity and obliquity. A distinctive feature is its capacity for emotional restraint and self-containment. These poems do not strain after effect. They do not reach for easy drama, or overt emotionality. And yet, even as they oscillate between aloofness and ardour, between the laconic and the lyrical,...