SOURCE: West, Kathleene. Review of Going Back to the River. Prairie Schooner 66, no. 3 (fall 1992): 129-31.

In the following review, West comments on Hacker's use of a wide variety of forms, rhyme schemes, and metrical patterns.

Marilyn Hacker's previous book, Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons is a hard act to follow. A novel in verse, mostly sonnets, it had readers and reviewers gasping out their astonishment that poetry could be lively, entertaining, and, above all, not boring. Love, Death was a stunning book, indeed, but those who have been reading Hacker's work since Presentation Piece have known all along the excitement and delight she has in store for them with each book.

Going Back to the River, cannily titled, doesn't attempt to be a follow-up to anything. It does fulfill the expectations of the reader who anticipates some lively turns of phrase in a set form...