Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems

Gallagher's large following has honored her work, since the 1970s, for many reasons. Some value her proliferation of family elegies, remembering her rough-hewn father and the hardscrabble corners of the American Northwest. Others see her as a generous travel poet, greeting the landscapes of Ireland and Japan: most of the 20 new poems here refer to the west of Ireland. Gallagher (Dear Ghosts) can also present herself as a spiritual guide, in poems about the nature of poetry: "if I speak of the soul," one poem concludes, "it is only to use a halo of doubt/ to mark the site of a true disappearance." Gallagher also remains well known, however, as the widow of Raymond Carver, who died in 1988. Much of Gallagher's verse, from then until now, looks back on what they shared. "If his are the only lips," "His Moment" asks, "am I never to be kissed/ except as one never-to-be-kissed again?" This big collection presents all of Gallagher's poetic sides: readers who already thought her overwrought, lacking technical polish, will not change their minds, but many others who take sustenance from Gallagher's words will find they have come to the right place here. (Oct.)