[Taking Notice] is an impressive work of art, and Marilyn Hacker is an artist with a sharp, crystalline mind. She is never fashionable—and poetry these days is too too dangerously a world in which fashion seems to fascinate….

Technically she is a superb artisan. This was true in her first two books and is now more true than ever. Probably the other most important characteristic she possesses as a writer is a discerning eye for truth, however unpleasant, however against the grain, however out of vogue. She has her artistic eye trained on what is actually happening, however murky the gestalt may be, and she keeps it right there until the drama is played out. Her determination to speak truth and her technical skill combine to produce an epigrammatic quality, an epigrammatic wisdom in Taking Notice. Any given line or couple of lines is likely to be...