Assumptions

by Marilyn Hacker

This collection of poems by the National Book Award-winning poet includes three long poems about being a traveller, a woman, and a part of history, as well as a sonnet sequence illuminating individual moments

Genres: Poetry

92 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

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

[Grace Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always with Hacker, I enjoyed this book. I find her work to be captivating and very image evoking. It is powerful and beautiful. I enjoy Hacker’s commentary on gender and a ‘woman’s’ place in the world. I also enjoy the variety of prose that Hackers work offers.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for their next poetry fixation.

[Mills College Library]

811.54 H118a 1985