Desesperanto: Poems 1999-2002.

• Author: Zeiger, Melissa
• Position: Brief Article - Book Review

Desesperanto: Poems 1999-2002 By Marilyn Hacker W. W. Norton. 128 pages. $23.95.

Marilyn Hacker's latest volume of poems combines musings on failed love, bodily change, and anguished reflections on the post-9/11 world. Nonetheless, it registers her trademark warm, hip wit ("Ex-lovers who won't lie down naked again / still permit themselves to flirt in letters") and eagerly records urban, social, and literary worlds. Who else is writing poetry about street people, immigrant neighborhoods, and urban classrooms, while...