Bialosky's Subterranean has been generally quite favorably reviewed. Critics such as the well-known Harold Bloom are quoted on the back of the collection itself with superlatives about her voice and style. In Library Journal, Louis McKee praises Bialosky's "varied and original" aesthetic, and presents a list of the poet's ambitious thematic goals, including "Desire, virginity, fertility and motherhood, . . . the passions of her life before children, the seductions of suicide, and the comforts of art."

Not all commentary has been solely positive. A Publishers Weekly critic points out that Bialosky's tendency to focus on the ground of conventional wisdom is not very compelling: "The poems work this ground with manic insistence, and, despite the fervid effort, harvest insights that are curiously banal." It goes on to claim that the collection is of "topical interest," and predicts that it will gather a good deal of attention in part...