TRAVELING AMERICA WITH TODAY'S POETS

It must be said that this is a large, sprawling anthology with no more than a handful of really distinguished entries. Nevertheless, the contributions--many from young, still maturing poets and all geographically arranged by state and city--add up to a fresh, likable, and often provocative view of regional America. At worst, some of the selections are merely ingenuous: a number of Kherdian's poets seem to be just passing through, their reactions often inspired more by professional angst than by the localities themselves. (""A man can specialized in loneliness,"" notes William Heath aptly in his elegy on ""Cold Feet in Columbus."") Yet these are balanced by the wellgrounded statements of such as Lucille Clifton, Dave Etter, Philip Levine, Millen Brand, and Al Young. In these, and in such differing landscapes as Jack Anderson's staccato, sardonic ""Invention of New Jersey"" and Cleopatra Mathis' quicksand-like dream of Louisiana, readers are sure to encounter something they can call home.