31 Letters and 13 Dreams

Critics have praised Hugo's technical skills, the emotional impact of his compressed images, and the casual, sometimes humorous tone of his poems. In addition to his major poetry collections-including A Run of Jacks (1961), Death of the Kapowsin Tavern (1965), Good Luck in Cracked Italian (1969), The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir (1973), What Thou Lovest Well, Remains American (1975), 31 Letters and 13 Dreams (1977), and Selected Poems (1979)-Hugo also published a collection of essays, The Triggering Town (1979) and the mystery novel Death and the Good Life (1981); his autobiography was posthumously published as The Real West Marginal Way (1987). His forte, however, was poetry, and his characteristic stance as a self-analytic writer, a perceptive observer, and a Westerner is evident in Making Certain It Goes The Collected Poems of Richard Hugo (1984).