In Ten Senses: Some Sentences on Art's Senses and Intents

Heather McHugh is the award-winning author of poetry, essays, and book translations. Called a “postmodern metaphysician” by Booklist, McHugh is widely praised for her attention to and fascination with language. Her poems often revolve around complicated wordplay and etymological games. One notable work was Hinge & Sign: Poems 1968–1993, which won the Boston Book Review's Bingham Poetry Prize, the Pollack-Harvard Review Prize, and was named by The New York Times Book Review a Notable Book of the Year. Glottal Stop: Poems by Paul Celan, co-authored with Nikolai B. Popov, won the Griffin International Poetry Prize.

McHugh was elected as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1999. At the end of 2001, McHugh's sixth collection of poetry, The Father of the Predicaments, was published by the Wesleyan University Press. Her most-recent poetry collection, Eyeshot, was published this year by Wesleyan University Press.