["Taking Notice"] is the work of a highly skilled, conscious artisan. Several poems are dedicated to other writers, but [Marilyn Hacker's] daughter also receives some witty, celebratory attention. Miss Hacker directly discusses the rigors and discipline of writing, but she often addresses friends in a seemingly offhanded way, and some poems have a quotidian, even improvised, quality. One section of the book is called "Occasions," but Miss Hacker is never involved in merely "occasional poetry."… The long sequence, "Taking Notice," consists of 25 sonnets that deal principally with a lesbian relationship, and uses an epigraph from Adrienne Rich, who has written in a similar vein in "XXI Love Poems." We hear a complex voice, riddled with wry self-doubt and longing….

This book's center is hard to characterize, for it has a [wide and complex] range of feeling and language…. Perhaps we must be content to refer to that autobiographical...