PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewMuddy Matterhorn, the poet’s ninth book of poetry and first book in over a decade, sends us wheeling through a vortex of strangeness...where high and low interchange in Dickinson-like reversals. Her words swerve sideways...and her thoughts proceed in sphinxlike complexity. When what’s in fashion for poets is to embrace straightforward narrative ... Readers familiar with the poet’s oeuvre will immediately recognize her appetite for getting the most word bang for word buck ... In this collection, though, her unusual impulses with language channel a deep sense of loss ... witty elevation is set against baser pleasures ... Bringing her off-kilter sensibility to environmental crisis...she exhibits gallows humor ... What I admire most about this collection is that McHugh demonstrates her genius with language in a non-elitist way. She is relatable, never writing from the lofty heights of the mountain, but walking alongside us, inviting us to play, to puzzle out the strangeness of language with her ... McHugh invites us to question what we think we know; her poems teach us to look again and beckon us to find the enigmatic wisdom in the messy highs and lows of living.
