Are the Poems of Rydra Wong in Babel-17 based on the real works of Marilyn Hacker?

Question

In the novel Babel-17 the protagonist Rydra Wong is both a space captain and a poet. I have seen it asserted that Wong's poems are to some extent based on those of Marilyn Hacker.

Hacker was married to Samuel R. Delany when Delaney wrote Babel-17 and they edited Quark: A Quarterly of Speculative Fiction (4 issues; 1970–71) together. Hacker has been considers a member of the "New Formalist" school of poetry. She has won the National Book Award for Poetry, a Lambda Literary Award, The Nation's Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, 1996 Poets' Prize, the 2001 Audre Lorde Award, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004. In 2013, she was inducted into the New York Writers Hall of Fame.

I am looking for any or all of: statements by Delaney or Hacker that Wong's verse is based on Hacker's work (or that it was not); published literary analysis comparing the two, or analysis by a poster here.

Answer 1

As far as I can see, Rydra Wong's poems are only quoted in two places in the text. The first occurs when she is speaking to General Forester, and quotes two lines of her poem "Advice to those who would love poets":

Young man, she will gnaw out your tongue.

Lady he will steal your hands.

The second example was a line quoted by Dr T'mwarba:

"A worm. Some where in Eden now, a worm, a worm." That was one of her earliest poems.

Unfortunately three lines of poetry is not much to perform a literary analysis on.

The epigraphs separating the different sections are attributed to "M.H" i.e. Marilyn Hacker. As Silly but True mentions, these are credited at the start of the book:

All epigraphs are from the poems of Marilyn Hacker, reprinted by permission of The Washington Square Review, Ravich Press, and International Authors’ Representatives.

Answer 2

Possibly

The copyright page credits epigraphs in book to poetry of Marilyn Hacker. However, the epigraphs themselves include the initials “M. H.,” not for example “R. W.,” as could be expected if the epigraphs were intending to be the fictional work of the fictional protagonist Rydra Wong.

While the protagonist Rydra Wong is herself a symbolic representation of Marilyn Hacker, Rydra’s work as a poet coyly predates the events of the novel, as she states on Pg. 6 of the novel:

“‘At nineteen, I quit the Military and, well, got . . . married, and started writing seriously. Three years later my first book came out.’ She shrugged, smiled. ‘For anything after that, read the poems. ' It's all there.’”

As a result, not much of Rydra’s verse exists in Delany’s text, and by all accounts even if the character’s fictional work was created or inspired by Hacker, only the epigraphs are credited to Hacker; the novel’s text, including Wong’s poetry verse appearing in the text are credited to Delaney.

By the time Delany wrote Babel-17, published in 1966, he was in a relationship with Hacker. However, at that time, she had no professional poetry career yet to speak of. Her first published poetry appeared in Cornell University's venerable Epoch after she began sending her work out for publication at age 26 in 1968. She may have created a body of unpublished work, however, which could still have inspired Rydra’s fictional poetry in Babel-17.

I personally accept that given Wong’s inspiration as a character is developed from Hacker, that Wong’s poetry would likewise originate from Hacker’s connection too.