Relations : selected poems, 1950-1985

There is a gratifying wholeness of subject and style in this generous sampling from four decades of Booth's poetry. Again and again he evokes the granite-hard world of the Maine coast, the home of "fish and seal,/ crab and beach-pea," forever threatened by a sea that mocks the calculations of "compass, chart, and log." Beyond the coast lie meadows of "aster and chicory, sumac/ poplar and apple." Always sensitive to weather and the particularity of physical objects, Booth shows how this real world becomes his dream world. The sea becomes the "floodtide/ under my skull." Booth is master of the short line: life and art are pared down to the utterly powerful essentials: "beads of rain/ hang cold/ on the lilac." A major book by a major American writer; highly recommended.