Selected Poems 1965-1990
-
- $10.99
-
- $10.99
Publisher Description
Here is a rich collection of work from five books by one of America's most controversial poets. Marilyn Hacker's poems have been praised for their technical virtuosity, forthright feminism, political acuity, and unabashed eroticism.
Included are selections from Hacker's first book, Presentation Piece (1974), the Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets and a National Book Award Winner; Separations (1976); Taking Notice (1980), which was claimed as an integral part of the burgeoning feminist and lesbian canon; Assumptions (1985), which explored the conundrums of gender, race, and identity in contemporary life; and Going Back to the River(1990), which received a Lambda Literary Award.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tracing Hacker's (Assumptions) poetic development here will make an intriguing journey for both new and familiar readers of this leader of the feminist/lesbian poetry movement. Hacker's signature style-passionate, technically deft-is spotlighted in early poems such as ``Elegy,'' paying tribute to the agonized ``sandpaper/ velvet'' throat of Janis Joplin. The poet has noted that ``subjects choose us, not otherwise'': by the 1980s, her subjects were avowedly feminist, ranging from political ideology in ``Coda'' to eros in ``La Fontaine de Vauclause.'' Other poems disclose her ``taking notice'' of her estranged relations with her diabetic mother, and of her daughter Ira, ``born hero'' and ``found... flawed.'' Recent poems find Hacker's stance forthrightly gay (``unsaintly ordinary female queers''), yet her style has become more muted, especially in written reveries about the chaotic 1960s. This collection deserves honors for its great heart and its embrace of the female condition.
