"'No word can clear itself' in this accomplished volume of poems, which illuminates how the contradictions and dualities concealed in language both betray and redeem us . McHugh emerges as a kind of seer, and her striking conceits and crackling rhythms reveal an intellect that is often as sensuous as it is clever."-- The New Yorker "McHugh's terse and deeply intelligent poems teach the virtues of wit, curiosity, patience and attention. Like Rilke and Celan, McHugh makes a poem into a storehouse of predicaments--a field of compound and divided meanings never synthesized or resolved . McHugh uses paradox and equivocation to quarry and refine hard truths from the vernacular: that living is dying, that the mind has only itself to know itself. McHugh's poems are not flights from these truths but honest and often humorous efforts to bear them."-- Newsday "Her writing is so alert to itself, so alert to language, it's like watching a dancer on a mirrored floor, stepping on her steps. She's practically playing with her words as she writes them down.

'Joycean' is the word that comes to mind . This kind of writing could seem like pure playfulness, but in McHugh it rarely does . She's a poet for whom wit is a form of spiritual survival."--Robert Hass, The Washington Post Book World " 'No word can clear itself' in this accomplished volume of poems, which illuminates how the contradictions and dualities concealed in language both betray and redeem us . McHugh emerges as a kind of seer, and her striking conceits and crackling rhythms reveal an intellect that is often as sensuous as it is clever."-- The New Yorker "Heather McHugh is one of the brightest of the Pacific Northwest's literary jewels . These poems slide like quicksilver in and out of one's grasp playful and provocative . McHugh's elusive, allusive language is the fitting instrument for knowing a world that is equally unsettled .

McHugh's poems offer the constant delight of words and worlds made new. The Father of the Predicaments stands as a remarkable achievment of contemporary poetry."-- Seattle Times.