SOURCE: Gates, Beatrix. “Death Be Not Proud.” Lambda Book Report 8, no. 9 (April 2000): 17-18.

In the following review, Gates discusses the recurring references to death in Hacker's Squares and Courtyards.

Marilyn Hacker's ninth book of poems, Squares and Courtyards, as the title suggests, opens onto experiences of public gathering and private ritual. Death is chief among them—and the collective lives of the passing arrange themselves kaleidoscopically throughout the book. Death is a regular refrain, addressed from every side. There are no hidden places, only constant exposure, and in the title poem of the first section, “Scars on Paper,” the poet addresses her own cancer: “The pain and fear some courage extinguished / at disaster's denouement come back / daily, banal; is that brownish-black / mole the next chapter?” Death remains an open question. “Our saved-for-now lives are life sentences,” is the stinging line from “Invocation.”

“The Boy” who begins the book...