Presentation Piece

by Marilyn Hacker

Very Good Hardcover New Viking, 1974. First edition, 1974. Selected for the 1973 Lamont Poetry contest, with Lamont announcement laid in loosely at the front. Mustard hardcover with black cloth spine, with dustjacket. About fine condition with tight binding, clean pages, no names or other markings. The mylar protected dustjacket is not priceclipped [6.95] and is also about fine with no chips or tears.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall.

Genres: Poetry, Queer

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

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

[Griffin Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

By and by a wortwhile read, especially if you have come to Hacker by way of Samuel R. Delany's inclusion of her work in Babel-17 and his memoir The Motion Of Light In Water: Sex And Science Fiction Writing In The East Village. Included here in its entirety (one of the best poem cycles in the book) is "The Navigators" about her polyamorous relationship with SRD and their mutual friend. This book is worth it for that poem cycle alone.

Otherwise, there are some hits and some misses—the alterity between blank-verse and metered rhyme comes off as uneven, though a great deal of the sestinas are wonderful—there is some apocalyptic/revolutionary fervor that I only wish were more cultivated throughout. Would have perhaps been a better if its selection were more pared down, though I understand that as Hacker's first published book of poetry she had quite a bit of material stored up for quite some time. I will be reading the rest of the work of hers I am able to find despite this uneven debut.

[Rahadyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure I can ever write poetry again, since I no longer regularly read it. This was Marilyn Hacker's first collection, published in the early 70's. As with any "old" book, I try to match up what was going on in the political and cultural world with when these poems were written. I especially loved her elegy for Janis Joplin.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Came to this via Delaney's Motion of Light on Water as both describe their lives, as Delany includes Hacker's lines in his autobiography and early novels. It's a remarkable collection. The seeming contradictory pulls of the content--Hacker's bohemian life w/Delaney and spiraling imagination against her formalism makes some poems seem like they'll explode. Though, apparently, Hacker moves in an even more formalist direction after this collection. See "Ice Plants: Army Beach."

[Kel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I forgot how beautiful Marilyn Hacker's poetry is--and I was reminded of through reading Samuel Delaney's The Motion of Light in Water. So glad I found my way back to her work.

[Jeff Youngstrom]

My review from July 14, 1998