We Are Called Human: The Poetry of Richard Hugo

A study of the development of Richard Hugo's poetry over the span of eight books, 'We are Called Human: The Poetry of Richard Hugo' focuses on one of the most distinctive and powerful voices in contemporary American poetry. After discussing the emergence of a "poetics of need," the author takes up each book in turn, from the poetry of "Northwest baroque" (as Frederick Garber calls it) in 'A Run of Jacks' (1961) to the crucial but often overlooked 'Good Luck in Cracked Italian' (1969) to the western sensibility of 'The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir' (1973) and through the widely acclaimed 'The Right Madness on Skye' (1980). ln this thorough survey, the strengths of Hugo's poetry become clear: his careful sensitivity and use of sound and metrics; his startling imagery, evident long before the advent of fashionable surrealism; his firm regional roots in the people and the landscape of the Northwest and West; and, above all else, his consciousness of the essential connections between people-connections that ultimately make us human. We live in an increasingly fragmented society and the voices of our poets have become increasingly isolated, aloof, arcane. Along with the poetry of Philip Levine, the late James Wright, William Stafford, and Maxine Kumin, Hugo's poetry carefully weighs the losses of community in our lives and celebrates what remains of that "continuum of song" that is the essential heart of poetry.