Amy Clampitt sure-handedly set the gold standard for poetry in the waning decades of the twentieth century. Her work is a universe of grace. I've got three copies of this one--one for the bedside table, one for sneaking reacquaintance in the lower-left drawer of my office desk, and another for the slow-crawling intervals of the commute. When it comes to poetry, there haven't exactly been too many essential collections of late. But this is one.

Now here in one gorgeous volume is 496 pages of proof that this original and curious intellect once lived among us, and, having looked (and looked) at our time and many places, left us these hard-headed, light-filled poems.

I have to admit that Mary Jo was a professor of mine, 10 (or more) years ago. I have always followed her poetry, though not when I was a student of hers. This collection reveals (again) Ms. Salter's relationship to family, to historical figures (particularly Emily Dickenson), to place and time.....Particularly important is Salter's "Elegies for Etsuko"......what a profound and felt piece of prose for a friend, a woman.....Salter says, "Given how brief a spell....happiness usually is, and the ways people are forever failing us, with time it shocks me less you didn't mind leaving the two of them behind; yes yes, I see that, I see it very well..." Salter goes on to question a gendered way of relationships, although always being deeply connected to those relationships (with her husband, her children,her students, etc.). Ms. Salter is a deeply thoughtful, grounded, intelligent and important poet (and teacher)...

Ihave to admit that Mary Jo was a professor of mine, 10 (or more) years ago. I have alsways followed her poetry, though not when I was a student of hers. This collections reveals (again) Ms. Salter's relationship to family, to historical figures (particularly Emily Dickenson), to place and time.....Particularly important is Salter's "Elegies for Etsuko"......what a profound and felt piece of prose for a friend, a woman.....Salter says, "Given how brief a spell....happiness usually is, and the ways people are forever failing us, with time it shocks me less you didn't mind leaving the two of them behind; yes yes, I see that, I see it very well..." Salter goes on to question a gendered way of relationships, although always being deeply connected to those relationships (with her husband, her children,her students, etc.). Ms. Salter is a deeply thoughtful, grounded, intelligent and important poet (and teacher)...

The Franconia, New Hampshire, farm of the American poet Robert Frost was turned into a museum and center for poetry and the arts in 1976. From that time, "The Frost Place" has been annual event wherein an emerging poet has been invited to spend the summer living in the house where Frost once lived and wrote some of his greatest poetry. The Breath Of Parted Lips: Voices From The Robert Frost Place, Volume One is a remarkable anthology of twenty-four poets, each of whom won that honor of a summer's residency and document the success of the original concept as a means of generating outstanding poetry while nurturing the poet's muse in the rooms and views that were once the inspiration of the great Robert Frost. Poem At 40: Windwashed--as if standing next to the highway,/a truck long as the century sweeping by,/all things at last bent in the same direction./An opening, as if all/the clothes my ancestors ever wore/dry on lines in my body:/wind-whipped, parallel with the ground,/some sleeves sharing a single clothespin/so that they seem to clasp hands,/seem to hold on.//And now that I can see/up the old women's dresses,/there's nothing but a filtered light./And now that their men's smoky breath/has traversed the earth,/it has nothing to do with them./And now that awkward, fat tears of rain/slap the window screen,/now that I'm naked too,/cupping my genitals, tracing with a pencil/the blue vein between my collar bone and breast,/I'll go to sleep when I'm told.

If you read no other poetry, you MUST read "Poppies", a moving and beautiful poem. Ms. Salter's work exhibits a sensitivity quite unlike other modern writers. Highly recommended.

The selection of poems in this anthology, although it includes many of the great poems of English literature, is very poor. About a third of the book is devoted to relatively mediocre 20th century poetry, written by poets practically unknown now, who will be completely forgotten 50 years from now. The book could be much lighter and hopefully less expensive if it included fewer of these poems, which are not really appropriate in a book intended as a survey of English poetry (that is, poetry in English, of course). There must be better anthologies.

Another annoying thing is that the editors have given glosses to explain the simplest concepts and terms. These glosses interrupt one's reading of a poem, and for people who do not know the words explained, a dictionary would be much more useful.

It's hard to assign an appropriate number of stars to a book like this, since of course many of the poems are great ones. However, as an anthology of poetry this book fails in many respects.

First of all, nearly half of the book consists of relatively mediocre 20th century poetry. The book could be cut in two at the middle, and the first half sold as a meagre anthology of poetry up to the 20th century, and the second as a comprehensive collection of 20 century poems. The 20th century is one of the worst in terms of the poetry it gave to the world. Many of the poets in the second half are practically unknown now, and will have been entirely forgotten fifty years from now. Although the book dutifully includes many of the great poems of English literature and is therefore not entirely useless, the selection is otherwise a very curious one for a book intended as a general survey of English poetry. A large percentage of the poems in this book could be cut out and it would be as good as it is now, only a great deal lighter and hopefully cheaper.

Another irritating thing is the footnotes. The editors seem to have assumed that they need to define and explain the simplest terms and concepts. For example, on page 215, they give a gloss for the word "clod," defining it as "Lumps of earth or clay." That's all very well, but "clod," a common English word, does not require explanation. It's distracting to the reader that knows it to have his attention called to the footnote. One's reading of the poem is thereby interrupted. Anyone who does not know the meaning of "clod" could perfectly well turn to a dictionary.

Are you remotely interested in poetry then you should buy The Norton Anthology of Poetry by Margaret Ferguson(Editor), et al. This book is a wonderfull presentation into world of poetry and presents a wast array of poets, i.e., everyhting Anna Laeitta Barbauld to William Shakespeare. Being a fan of the older style of poetry, e.g., William Shakespeare, John Milton and Geofrey Chaucer, I was happy to see that these parts had the space that they righly deserve. The index is very well developed and it was an excellent idea to pu each poem under the name of poet since otherwise finding a particular poem would have ben almost impossible. The font selected is very easy to read. The only downside is the quality of the paper; being almost 2000 pages long in paperback the quality of the paper is so-so and next time I will buy it in hardcover.

A Kiss in Space is a major drop in quality of work. Anyone who has read Salter's books Sunday Skaters or Unfinished Paintings knows Salter is a top notch poet, but A Kiss in Space is just not up to the standard I'm used to seeing from her. I hope her latest book is back up there.

This fourth collection of poetry from Mary Jo Salter comes like a dragon's breath of hot air--filling a balloon then lifting it and its occupants (we, the readers) to sail far above the expanses of Salter's lucid imagination. Thus our ride begins.

We are there, raising our champagne glasses along with Salter, as hundreds of balloons rise over Chartres. We stay at her side--happily--as she touches down on her lifetime and those of historical and fictional figures: Alexander Graham Bell, Helen Keller, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

We head into space for the kiss. We even come upon a gang of kangaroos "like flustered actors who don't know what to do with their hands... who look properly stunned when our typecast tour bus, bumptious as a cousin none of them invited, raises a ruckus of flung stones and dust and scrapes to a halt before them, face to face."

These encounters with nature, history, fiction, family, animals and the elusive self--is each a kiss in space-- and never a mere peck on the cheek.