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A Phone Call to the Future: New & Selected Poems (review)

Mary Jo Salter is as astute a commentator on the current American scene as poets come nowadays. Moreover, this severely chosen sampling from her collections published since 1984, preceded by eighteen new poems, maintains an extremely high level. It displays Salter’s graceful skill both in and out of strict forms, wit and an unerring eye for detail, an abundant human sympathy. A large proportion of the poems tell stories. One of the most ambitious, “Alternating Currents” yokes together histories of Alexander Graham Bell, of Joseph Bell (a model for the character of Sherlock Holmes), and of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan. This union of disparate narratives is well enough achieved, if a bit arbitrary. “The Hand of Thomas Jefferson” succeeds better, I think, bringing together the stories of the widowed Jefferson’s lost love (not Sally Hemmings, but Italian-born artist Maria Cosway); of his successive injuries to wrist and arm, and of his final reconciliation with John Adams. Jefferson’s longings, his triumphs and frustrations, are rendered real and graspable. Several of the most engaging poems seem immediately personal, involving loved ones or drawing from direct observation. The poet’s strengths emerge in the elegiac poems “Lunar Eclipse,” for Anthony Hecht, and “Another Session,” a sonnet sequence in tribute to a therapist whom the poet calls “Possessor of my secrets, not a friend.” At times I think Salter’s work might gain from concision, from stepping up the pace of the story, although, Lord knows, I couldn’t remove a word from “For Emily at Fifteen.” And “Lullaby for a Daughter” informs with meaning a mere four lines: