Upgraded to Serious

<p>If McHugh is serious she's anything but grim; with all her punning bantering and mock scolding of herself . . . she brightens the shadowy corners of her world with verbal pyrotechnics.—<I>The New York Times Book Review</I></p><p>Her poems are open resilient invisibly twisted: part safety net part trampoline.—<I>Village Voice Literary Supplement</I></p><p>This fast-paced verbally dexterous book—honored as a Book of the Year by <I>Publishers Weekly</I>—boils up and boils over as it utilizes medical terminology and iconography to work through loss and detachment. Heather McHugh's startling rhymes and rhythms coupled with her sarcastic self-reflection and infectious laughter serve as both palliative and prophylactic in the face of human sufferings and ignorance. Being upgraded to serious from critical condition is a nod to the healing powers of poetry.</p><p><B>Not to Be Dwelled On</B></p><p><I>Self-interest cropped up even there<BR>the day I hoisted three instead<BR>of the ceremonially called-for two<BR>spadefuls of loam<BR>onto the coffin of my friend.</I></p><p><I>Why shovel more than anybody else?<BR>What did I think I'd prove? More love<BR>(mud in her eye)? More will to work?<BR>(her father what a shirker?) Christ<BR>what wouldn't anybody give<BR>to get that gesture back?</I></p><p><I>She cannot die again; and I<BR>do nothing but re-live.</I></p><p><B>Heather McHugh</B> is the author of a dozen books of poetry and translation. She teaches at the University of Washington and Warren Wilson College and lives in Seattle Washington.</p><BR>