Isthmus was Jeremy Reed’s first collection, produced in a finely-printed edition by Asa Benveniste’s Trigram Press in 1980. Overwrought, perhaps even over-written, it shows the author struggling with a gamut of new influences – some of them provided by Benveniste – and trying to find his way in a brane new world of poetry. The book has an American theme, and shows much American influence, albeit undigested in places, but Reed’s individuality brings it all together.