WHITE SUMMER is John J. Herman's first book-length collection of poems. He has previously published four novels, including THE WEIGHT OF LOVE, a Nan Talese Book that was selected by Publisher's Weekly as one of the best novels of the year, and a chapbook of poems. Herman began writing poetry as an adolescent. He has been a professor, editor, and novelist, but has never ceased his devotion to poetry. Herman writes that his roots as a poet lie in the Modern tradition, and behind that in the Romantic and Symbolist writers of the 19th century, with their belief that poetry represents a unique form of discourse. Language-its words, images, metaphors-offer meanings and implications, Mr. Herman suggests, that lie embodied in the poetry itself, making of poetry a continuing, cumulative experience. Herman adds that each of his poems "tries to catch a significant event: a particular emotion-or a thought-as-emotion-in a particular time and place; and attempts to marshal the words, images, music, that will embody that emotion or thought so as to convey it to the reader."