SOURCE: A review of Seeing through the Sun, in Library Journal, Vol. 110, No. 9, May 15, 1985, p. 68.

In the following review, Yerburgh applauds Hogan's use of simple language and recurring images in Seeing through the Sun.

Chickasaw Indian poet Hogan's voice has a tough delicacy [in Seeing through the Sun]. Stripped-down language fired by a vigorous imagination creates spare poems that only just manage to contain their emotional intensity. “Desert” and other poems in a series for her daughters are loving and unsentimental: “She teaches them to turn the soil / one grain at a time. / They plant so carefully / seeds grow from their hands.” Hypnotic rhythms rising from evenly stressed lines transform “hearts the size of fists” to “fists disguised as hearts.” Recurring images—light, sun, teeth, stars, hands, keys, mirrors, trees, the four elements—interweave the ordinary with the surreal in this fine collection by a gifted poet.