Philip Booth's Mainescapes, "Weathers and Edges," cover ground that is familiar to observers of the school of New England coastal poetry. Rocks, fishermen, dories, lobster pots, seaweed, ledges, square-dancing. One must also report, a bit ruefully, that Booth is in favor of mothers, children, babies-at-the-breast, and other such good things. With a sigh of relief at his passage through these tests of virtue, we can continue to report that the poetry is there, though sometimes hidden by masses of glacial debris. Booth is determined that we shall recognize that he is a "good guy"; he has a wife, friends, commutes in suburban traffic, is worried about the wreck of the submarine Thresher.

The poetry is there; one must simply overlook certain amateurish, self-conscious efforts. He writes of the "cider light" that "opens the deepening woods," the West Side Highway, the buck feeding in the snow of Deer Isle—these are true revelations. A homage to Henry Moore, expressed in the sculpture of sealedges, is well nigh perfect; as is his companion tribute to John Marin. Here Booth begins to earn his attitudes. They blossom with a just regionality, in a succession of remarkable power: poems of seeing, of looking….

Mr. Booth is a poised poet; it is only the attitude, never the art, which is sometimes in question. (p. 24)