New Geography of Poets

This sequel to Field's A Geography of Poets takes its title literally, dividing poets into seven somewhat arbitrary geographical categories, including ``The Old West.'' In the introduction the editors write, ``We ask what the poets say about where they are . . . ,'' searching for poems that attempt ``a balance between inner and outer geography.'' This fascinating premise is at once too broad and too limiting. At its best it produces some excellent poems, such as Wanda Coleman's piece about the Southern California man whose wife ``didn't know he was so shook'' until she found him sweating through the sheets at night, and watched ``with mixed emotions'' as he ``fell through'' when an earthquake broke the bed; or Field's own poem about being trapped in a low-rent apartment in a Greenwich Village filled these days with yuppies and thrill-seekers. In far too many pieces, however, the internal and external landscapes become so intertwined that neither is distinct. Whether evoking city or country, these poems are shot through with a sense of loss--the remembered landscape invaded, trees giving way to tract housing, factories closing, the familiar ``geography'' no longer viable. (Sept.)