Selected Poems 1965-1990

I suspect she can rattle off blank verse in iambic pentameter without thinking about it. She can be as earthy as Sharon Olds ("Mother II"), self-deprecating as Philip Larkin ("Riposte") or amusingly Byronic ("Ballade of Ladies Lost & Found.") I appreciate her older poetry, but my admiration increases as I read the newer work, particularly the poems from the most recent collection in this book, Going Back to the River; I would mention "April Interval," "Nights of 1964-1966: the Old Reliable," "Elevens" and `Against Silence" as being particularly striking. She is a diva at my favorite forms: the sonnet and the sestina, and now, thanks to her I have found a new one, the canzone.

Hacker is a master of the sonnet, sestina, and villanelle. I'm always amazed when I arrive at the end of one of her poems and discover that elegant and natural words are arranged in one of these structured ways. Her words and images pull you into the poems and into Hacker's mind. Elegant. Beautiful.