McHugh has been one of the most important American poets for nearly thirty years. Her 1994 compilation, Hinge and Sign: Poems, 1968-1993, a collection of works published in her first twenty-five years as a poet as well as new poems, was nominated for a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. Peter Turchi notes in Ploughshares that the book “demonstrates depth well beyond the early virtuosity, as well as humility, evidence of a writer who is still listening, still learning.” “Three To's and an Oi” comes from McHugh's next collection, The Father of the Predicaments, which was welcomed by critics as yet another masterly work. Jane Satterfield, in the Antioch Review, calls the book a “welcome fourth compilation” noting that in it “incidents of dramatic and seemingly random stature implode to reveal surprising insights.”

To the extent that there has been any critical negativity toward McHugh's writing...