Meadow Geese Press's new poetry offering, Coasts, is not a good thing to read if you're homesick for New England.  Mary Kennan Herbert's work often evokes salt spray, the scrape of barnacles, gray-blue water.  While bound by the sea, these poems aren't all about experiencing life on the east coast.  Herbert tackles the passage of time and the deterioration of personal relationships; she does a good job of getting across a general tone. In a number of pieces, it's difficult to get into Herbert's mindset. Her use of rhyme occasionally distracts the reader from the poem as a whole.  Still, pieces such as "Permission to Come Aboard, Sir", "Salt in the Wound" and "Long Distance" are particularly successful and are worth your time. As with When It Rained Cats and Dogs, Meadow Geese Press's recent children's book, Coasts is an attractive volume.  The blurb on its rear cover singles out Herbert's imagery, which is strong enough to give it an extra plug here.  This slim volume of modern poetry is a worthy addition to the Meadow Geese catalog. Herbert, Mary Kennan. Coasts: A Collection of Poems Bound By the Sea.  Meadow Geese Press, 2000.  $12.95

Let's begin with the source of my namesake: Henrik Ibsen.  Here are two interesting translations, one of Ibsen's epic masterpiece, the other of his rare-to-find, never-performed early, early work.  And one book of criticism, for balance?  Yeah, good stuff, not just run-of-mill Dover reprints... Ibsen, Henrik.  Peer Gynt.  Translated by Norman Ginsbury, Foreword by Tyrone Guthrie.  With 21 illustrations from the Old Vic production.  London: Hammond, Hammond & Co., 19454, 1947.  Some underlining in foreword, rest of text is clean.  Wonderful photographs.  Dust jacket has minor tears. VG-/VG-.  <SOLD> Ibsen, Henrik.  Early Plays: Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans.  Translated by Anders Orbeck.  NY: American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1921.  Red cloth.  F.  $10 Weigand, Herman J.  The Modern Ibsen: A Reconsideration.  NY: Dutton, 1925, 1953, 1960.  "A brillant, creative interpretation of Ibsen's social dramas."  Paperback.  G.  <SOLD>