276 Poetry for Students
to wonder about her relation to the observed world,
“a starscape cast / about my minor part” in which
definitions and favored assumptions are always
under siege. McHugh’s deliberations with ancient,
unanswerable questions—the predicaments of being
alive and staying alive—emerge anew in streetslang
and idiom, the “binding / stitcheries of syntax” and
“linking mechanisms,” which demonstrate McHugh’s
conviction that words are indeed the engine of
perception.
Source:Jane Satterfield, Review of Father of the Predica-
ments, in Antioch Review, Vol. 58, No. 2, Spring 2000, p. 247.Sources
Lynch, Doris, Review of The Father of the Predicaments,
in Library Journal, Vol. 124, No. 13, September 1999, p. 98.
McHugh, Heather, “Three To’s and an Oi,” in The Father
of the Predicaments, University Press of New England,
1999, pp. 28–29.
Review of The Father of the Predicaments, in the New
Yorker, November 29, 1999, p. 124.
Satterfield, Jane, Review of The Father of the Predicaments,
in the Antioch Review, Vol. 28, No. 2, Spring 2004, p. 247.Turchi, Peter, “About Heather McHugh,” in Ploughshares,
Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring 2001, p. 216.Further Reading
Becker, Robin, “The Poetics of Engagement,” in American
Poetry Review, Vol. 30, No. 6, November/December 2001,
pp. 11–15.
In this article, Becker reviews books by eight Amer-
ican women poets, including McHugh, and points out
the similarities of the times.
Harvey, Matthea, “Heather McHugh,” in Bomb, Summer
2005, pp. 82–88.
This interview brings up matters of style and method
in McHugh’s works that reflect directly on “Three
To’s and an Oi.”
Murphy, Bruce F., “Verse Versus Poetry,” in Poetry,
Vol. 177, No. 3, January 2001, pp. 279–86.
An analysis of prose poetry, a form that McHugh of-
ten uses, includes discussion of her overall technique
and reputation.
Schapira, Laurie Layton, The Cassandra Complex: Living
with Disbelief, Inner City Books, 1988.
Schapira takes a Jungian psychological approach to
the Cassandra story, looking at how its meaning has
changed through age and cultures.Three To’s and an Oi