Bob Hicok





Bob Hicok

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About this author

Bob Hicok was born in 1960. His most recent collection, This Clumsy Living (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), was awarded the 2008 Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress. His other books are Insomnia Diary (Pitt, 2004), Animal Soul (Invisible Cities Press, 2001),a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Plus Shipping (BOA, 1998), and The Legend of Light (University of Wisconsin, 1995), which received the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and was named a 1997 ALA Booklist Notable Book of the Year. A recipient of three Pushcart Prizes, Guggenheim and two NEA Fellowships, his poetry has been selected for inclusion in five volumes of Best American Poetry.

Hicok writes poems that value speech and storytelling, that revel in the m...more


Average rating: 4.20 · 915 ratings · 111 reviews · 14 distinct works
This Clumsy Living
4.22 of 5 stars 4.22 avg rating — 235 ratings — published 2007
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Insomnia Diary
4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 avg rating — 159 ratings — published 2004
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Words for Empty and Words f...
4.11 of 5 stars 4.11 avg rating — 113 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions
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Animal Soul (Contemporary C...
4.25 of 5 stars 4.25 avg rating — 116 ratings — published 2001 — 2 editions
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Legend Of Light
4.05 of 5 stars 4.05 avg rating — 57 ratings — published 1995 — 2 editions
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Plus Shipping
4.44 of 5 stars 4.44 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 1998
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Poets and Artists (O&S) Sel...
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5.0 of 5 stars 5.00 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 2009
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Oranges & Sardines: Fall 20...
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4.93 of 5 stars 4.93 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 2008
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MiPOesias (September 2010)
4.8 of 5 stars 4.80 avg rating — 5 ratings
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Ocho #30
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5.0 of 5 stars 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2010
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More books by Bob Hicok…

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“Here, when I say I never want to be without you,
somewhere else I am saying
I never want to be without you again. And when I touch you
in each of the places we meet,

in all of the lives we are, it's with hands that are dying
and resurrected.
When I don't touch you it's a mistake in any life,
in each place and forever”
Bob Hicok

Other Lives And Dimensions And Finally A Love Poem

My left hand will live longer than my right. The rivers
of my palms tell me so.
Never argue with rivers. Never expect your lives to finish
at the same time. I think

praying, I think clapping is how hands mourn. I think
staying up and waiting
for paintings to sigh is science. In another dimension this
is exactly what's happening,

it's what they write grants about: the chromodynamics
of mournful Whistlers,
the audible sorrow and beta decay of Old Battersea Bridge.
I like the idea of different

theres and elsewheres, an Idaho known for bluegrass,
a Bronx where people talk
like violets smell. Perhaps I am somewhere patient, somehow
kind, perhaps in the nook

of a cousin universe I've never defiled or betrayed
anyone. Here I have
two hands and they are vanishing, the hollow of your back
to rest my cheek against,

your voice and little else but my assiduous fear to cherish.
My hands are webbed
like the wind-torn work of a spider, like they squeezed
something in the womb

but couldn't hang on. One of those other worlds
or a life I felt
passing through mine, or the ocean inside my mother's belly
she had to scream out.

Here, when I say I never want to be without you,
somewhere else I am saying
I never want to be without you again. And when I touch you
in each of the places we meet,

in all of the lives we are, it's with hands that are dying
and resurrected.
When I don't touch you it's a mistake in any life,
in each place and forever.”
Bob Hicok

“Making it in poetry

The young teller
at the credit union
asked why so many
small checks
from universities?
Because I write
poems I said. Why
haven't I heard
of you? Because
I write poems
I said.”
Bob Hicok

Topics Mentioning This Author

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Graywolf Press: Introduce Yourself! 5 40 May 12, 2010 07:29am  
2012 Books: * 2012 Book List 388 119 May 31, 2012 02:22pm  


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