Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons

by Marilyn Hacker

A sonnet sequence of 167 poems tells the passionate story of a love affair between two women, from the erotic electricity of their first acquaintance to the tough-minded tranquility of their breakup

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Lesbian, Fiction, Romance, American

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Marilyn Hacker is an American poet, translator, critic, and professor of English.

Her books of poetry include Presentation Piece (1974), which won the National Book Award, Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons (1986), and Going Back to the River (1990). In 2009, Hacker won the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for King of a Hundred Horsemen by Marie Étienne, which also garnered the first Robert Fagles Translation Prize from the National Poetry Series. In 2010, she received the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. She was shortlisted for the 2013 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for her translation of Tales of A Severed Head by Rachida Madani.

Reviews

[MacKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who has ever been in love ought to read this book. Any woman who has ever been in love with another woman absolutely must read this book. Anyone who believes form in poetry trite will be changed by this book (and by Hacker's poetry in general).

I have heard Hacker read her work; each word is not merely tasted, but savored in her mouth. This book will reveal layers of flavor to you if you give it the same attentiveness.

Plus, it's real hott sometimes, too...my favorite combination of smarts and sensuality. Yum.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hacker cuts to the quick of it here, capturing love (and loss) as it occurs in the heat of the moment. One gets the sense that each poem was written breathlessly, in the wake of some intense emotion or another. In a way, the cycle is a long string of "morning-afters" (a year of them, in fact) - in which the entirety of a beautiful (and flawed) relationship is captured and distilled. There's an immediacy here that's lacking in most poetry I've read (and just for the record, the final poem in this sonnet cycle is unbelievable).

[Tanneke Zeeuw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this as I was coming out, writing poetry myself and formulating how I wanted to live as a feminist. Some stanzas still echo in my head today.

[Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a good primer on how to reinvent form, feminism, writing about eros. She will definitely make you blush!

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

The rise and fall of a love affair, one poem at a time. This is simply a beautiful work of art.

[John Vanderslice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book by Hacker. She long ago has proven herself a master at using forms, and breathing new life into them, in this present era of free verse. And LDCS is my favorite book by her. These sonnets are smart, funny, passionate (extremely passionate), and amazingly supple. The way in which she is able to make rhymes sound perfectly natural, even casual, is astounding. I read this book along with my class in a course I was teaching called Sonnet Writing Workshop. There is so much to learn about the form from reading this book. She's a master. Just to be able to examine each poem for what rhyme scheme she employs, where she uses off-rhyme, how she plays with off-rhyme is worth the price of the book. But you don't have to read it that way at all if you don't want to. You can just kick back and zoom through the whole sequence, reading it as a novel in sonnets, which is how the book is often described. It certainly tells a story. And it's one you will be thoroughly entertained by. Personally, I think this is book is a must read for anyone claiming to like poetry. One of the best books of poetry published in the last forty years.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I want our lives to touch
the way our minds do”

the final sonnet in this sequence is perhaps one of the most gorgeously depressing i have ever read. hacker’s concept and execution of said concept is terribly impressive: a year-long, seemingly autobiographical love story told almost entirely through sonnets. it was both captivating and confusing (with a small slump in the middle), but perseverance brought me some lovely poems. would read again!

[VIVI ★ · Rating 2 out of 5]

“I taste the morning light with such desire
as I will (say I will) take from the flower
of you, touch as I will learn your entire
country, these tender hills seen from a tower.”


I thought I was going to like this more, I don't know if it's just me but I struggled to understand a lot of it, and most of the poems made no sense to me, it was hard to get through, nevertheless there were a few lines that I really loved that saved this for me.


“I wish I had a roof over my bed
to pull down on my head when I feel damned
by wanting you so much it looks like need.”

[☽ Chaya ☾ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because it was mentioned in Pages for You. Also because I'm trying to read new genre and this is a poetry book.
It was very beautiful to read and I liked how it was still a story. This helped as I don't usually read poetry. However, I think most of this kind of went over my head. Despite this, I dont think it was hard to read as such, the pages flowed nicely, etc. I just think I didn't get everything I could've out of it.

[Nic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeously depressing is exactly how I'd put it Justin.

[Rio Morales · Rating 4 out of 5]

sonnets. based on reviews and recommendations i anticipated being able to follow the relationship arc more easily, but it was challenging. eventually i gave up and read each poem individually which yielded less confusion and some delights

[Stephy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of Love Poetry, written by Marilyn Hacker, an already famous poet. I more than like her. I admire her gifts of words to the world. I respect her a great deal. This should be recognized as word portraits of moments between lovers, magnificently touched to include feelings we mere mortals cannot put into words. The Poets with their word nets, chase them down and pin them to paper, and if we are lucky, we see them.

As a woman, she writes about love, death and as the title says, the changing of the seasons, in voices most men will never hear, not with the words in front of them on the page. I love her work, both here and in the twenty or so volumes she has been writing since 1960.

This book was a gift to me on my 50th birthday, by one of the truly human beings I have met, who happens to be an ordained Catholic Priest. I received no finer gift. Blessings on him.

[Suzanne Stroh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poetic masterpiece, simply a tour de force by a fiercely intelligent, sensitive poet who set out to write a novel in poetry. Then she decided to make things a little harder. How about doing it in sonnets? Shakespeare never tried that!

And guess what? These sonnets are perfect. All of them. And they flow like a river. And like the river flowing to the sea, the narrative deepens. The voices of the characters emerge. Almost begin to read the poems aloud. The story that results will break your heart.

For once I see brilliance in the cover art. This book is the Vermeer of love poetry. Love and loss. Longing and stolen pleasure. It's all here. Mostly dead sexy, with gorgeously erotic high points. The one book I recommend whenever somebody asks me for a great volume of love poems.

By the bedside for poetry lovers. Definitely.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was having a late-night conversation with my pal Ryan Kalas about the solstice, and somehow he said something about how he enjoyed talking to me about life and death. And then I remembered this book! I'd read it in college when Marilyn Hacker came to visit our intro to feminist studies class, but it resonated more now. I love the sonnets and other forms she uses here. I love how this is a novel, a story, in which every word counts (and can be counted, syllabically). I also like how the rhythm of the poems got a few sexy sentences stuck in my head. And yet, perhaps what I like most is the sense of place and the fleetingness of time. These poems are bound in Paris and New York, and we know that love can move before it begins.

[P · Rating 5 out of 5]

My God, this book is absolutely stunning. Hacker's poetry is truly inspirational, beautiful and poignant. Her sonnets about this past love affair, in particular are composed so articulately with great honesty. I was captivated from the very first page and left completely speechless when I turned the last. Her ability to capture the intensity of longing, lust and love in such sensuality is amazing. Also, her masterful artistic abilities as a poet further deepens my admiration for her as one of my favourite poets of all-time. "Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons" has definitely been added to my Top Ten Favourite Books list.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had known about this since reading Pages for You, and always wondered a little about it and looked for it in used bookstores; it wasn't until I needed it, until I found myself crying at three a.m. and racking up huge charges on Alibris in the wake of my divorce, that I decided that I shouldn't leave it up to chance to own a copy.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

So so amazing! Probably the best collection/sequence of poems I've read in a long time (ever?). The narrative really resonated with me - it was honest and poignant and emotionally powerful. Hacker's language is nuanced, erotic, and just beautiful. I dog-eared over half of the poems in order to return to and savor them again.

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first "lesbian" book I read when I finally got free and moved to LA in the late 1980's. This poetry about Hacker's relationship with a younger woman who finally leaves her is sexy, troubling...changed my life.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a raw honesty in Hacker's poems. Vivid imagery was also incorporated. Vivid and really intimate scenes, but after reading ten, twenty of them, it lost its novelty for me and my interest; hence, the two stars.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite poetry book of all time.

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

changed forever how i feel about the sonnet.

[Lilian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, amazing book.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

favorite book of poetry. ever.

[lola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Destroyed me.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing sonnets, esp. crown sonnets

[Chanel Chapters]

Recommended by my BFF.

Sapphic poems about a relationship - there was a narrative to the poems - they felt like linear sonnets about the course of the relationship. Almost diary-esque. For me it became repetitive and I felt like there didn’t need to be so many poems. (Sex is mentioned a lot)
Wasn’t for me overall but I can see why my friend loves it.

[Evangelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

five stars are not enough, I need to give it all the stars in the night sky

[Barrett Brassfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a word, simply great. Wait, that is two words, but you get the idea. I recently read a review of her most recent edition of collected poems, 1994-2014 and decided to revisit this classic. This was actually a re-read for me as I first encountered this emotionally devastating collection of poems some years back after the end of a very long relationship. Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons captures the full circle of a relationship from the giddy beginnings to the desolate heartache of the end and emotional aftermath in sonnets that use language much like sharp tools that leave no part of the heart uncut. In my many years as a reader I no of no other collection of poetry that hits the emotional arc of a relationship and a deep love the way this collection by Marilyn Hacker does. Read it, whatever stage of a relationship you happen to be in. Read it if at the moment all you have are memories. You will find a kindred spirit in the voice of the poet.

[Em H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

[probably more around the 2.5 mark]

I wanted to love this so much. And, some poems are utterly fantastic. But, so much of the collection adds nothing (I feel) to the overall narrative? And, I wanted way more poems about the lover leaving. Five poems? Out of 212 pages of poetry? Why?

Overall, I will certainly think about a couple of the poems in the near future, because they're beautiful and well structured. But, the collection as a whole was kind of a disappointment.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved these at first; sonnets make by brain feel good, and marrying the formal structure with contemporary language made for some really evocative poems - but by the end I started to feel a little worn down by the neverending romantic struggles and started yearning for something a bit.. less... hormonal