Heather McHugh was born in San Diego, CA, in 1948, and was raised in Virginia. She entered Harvard University at age 17 and published her first book of poems, "Dangers," in 1977. Since then, Ms. McHugh has published numerous poetry books, translations, a collection of literary essays, and has guest edited the 1997 edition of "Best American Poets." She has served as a visiting faculty member in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College for over 20 years, and has been the University of Washington in Seattle’s Milliman Writer-in-Residence since 1984. Her latest book of poems, "Upgraded to Serious," was published in 2009, a year in which she also added a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" to her list of awards, which includes two NEA grants and a Guggenheim Fellowship.Find more books by Ms. HcHugh.
Verdict
You don’t know what I was thinking,
he began. I said I didn’t think I did,
although I knew he sometimes
thought we thought alike.
That he believed we wouldn’t now
I had to wonder why he said. It isn’t your
believing I was thinking of, he answered; it is knowing
I was wondering about. Now I was sure
he meant what I believed, but then
I wondered whether both
or one were true. I knew
I meant to think it
through. But mean
means one thing alone,
and quite another with another; surely I was right to think
he knew how well we meant. Apparently
he didn’t, or I wasn’t. One of us
is wrong, that’s evident, but who?
By all that’s just, adjudicate: the only un-
committed one is you.
Heather McHugh
from “The Father of the Predicaments,” Wesleyan University Press, 1999
