Mr. Halperin's fourth collection with Salmon emphasizes what one poem calls `the so what of the different' in the startling, luminous language that has characterized his work from the beginning. Jesus, Miss Marple, Henry James, make brief appearances. Ireland, France, Japan, make longer appearances. Many love poems. People, whether friends or strangers, who are no longer here, are in fact still here, caught - as in a poem about Venice - `in the gum of time.' Joseph Woods has written, `like all great artists, Halperin makes no distinction between the living and the dead.' Richard W. Halperin holds Irish and U.S. nationality, and for the past decades has lived in Paris.