Hacker has developed a reputation as a lesbian activist sympathetic to the plight of oppressed minorities. Dorothy Allison, who has also written about lesbianism, published Bastard out of Carolina in 1992. This autobiographical novel tells the story of Ruth Anne Boatwright ("Bone"), who was raised in a family of poor Southern whites and molested by her violent stepfather.

Hacker's Selected Poems, 1965-1990 (1995) contains selections from from five of her previous volumes and contains much of her best work, including some of her best-known sonnets, sestinas, and villanelles.

Hacker's first collection of poems, Presentation Piece (1974), was a Lamont Poetry Selection and won the National Book Award in 1975. It remains one of her most accomplished volumes to date.

Sheep Meadow Press published a bilingual edition of Long Gone Sun (2000), which is a collection of poems written by French poet Claire Malroux and translated...