From the very start of her career, Mary Jo Salter has been considered an important American poet. Her first book of poetry, Henry Purcell in Japan: Poems (1985), was reviewed in several national publications, including the New Republic, where Alfred Corn gave it a grade of "A," commenting particularly on the poetry's "achieved tone and fine-grained diction."

Phoebe Pettingell also gave Salter an "A" when reviewing her second book, Unfinished Painting, for the New Leader. The book, Pettingell wrote, "deftly embodies the imperfect, the dilemma of loss, the fragility of accomplishment." She noted that she saw in it slight improvement over weaknesses in Salter's first book.

Not all reviewers have been glowing in their praise of Salter, though those that are reluctant about her have been few. One such reviewer is William Logan of the New Criterion. Logan's review of A Kiss in Space (1999) found Salter to...