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This Clumsy Living
I watched the young couple walk into the tall grass and close the door of summer behind them, their heads floating on the golden tips, on waves that flock and break like starlings changing their minds in the middle of changing their minds, I saw their hips lie down inside those birds, inside the day of shy midnight, they kissed like waterfalls, like stones that have traveled a million years to touch, and emerged hybrid, some of her lips in his words, all of his fists opened by trust like morning glories, and I smelled green pouring out of trees into grass, grass into below, I stood on the moment the earth changes its mind about the sun, when hiding begins, and raised my hand from the hill into the shadows behind the lovers, and contemplated their going with my skin, and listened to the grass in wind call us home like our mothers before dark.
About the Author:
Bob Hicok is assistant professor of English at Virginia Tech University
101 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
11 people are currently reading
1018 people want to read
About the author
Bob Hicok
52 books94 followersBob 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 material offered by pop culture, and that deny categories such as "academic" or "narrative." As Elizabeth Gaffney wrote for the New York Times Book Review: "Each of Mr. Hicok's poems is marked by the exalted moderation of his voice—erudition without pretension, wisdom without pontification, honesty devoid of confessional melodrama. . . . His judicious eye imbues even the dreadful with beauty and meaning."
Hicok has worked as an automotive die designer and a computer system administrator, and is currently an Associate Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
Hicok writes poems that value speech and storytelling, that revel in the material offered by pop culture, and that deny categories such as "academic" or "narrative." As Elizabeth Gaffney wrote for the New York Times Book Review: "Each of Mr. Hicok's poems is marked by the exalted moderation of his voice—erudition without pretension, wisdom without pontification, honesty devoid of confessional melodrama. . . . His judicious eye imbues even the dreadful with beauty and meaning."
Hicok has worked as an automotive die designer and a computer system administrator, and is currently an Associate Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
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September 20, 2022On the Acknowledgment page of his collection This Clumsy Living, poet Bob Hicok writes, “I’d also like to thank Gregory Fraser, Thomas Gardner, Austin Hummell, and Matthew Zapruder for reading different incarnations of this manuscript. You fools.”
Two thoughts: Humor, first and foremost, and an indication of the wry and insightful stuff Hicok writes. And this: How often do I read of successful manuscripts having not one but multiple readers providing feedback to sharpen the final product? One undeniable advantage, I’d say, to academia (for its teachers) and MFA programs (for its students).
Here’s an example of Hicok’s associative wordplay:
Duh
My father is silent and distant.
The moon is up though sometimes
to the side which is also called
over there. Coffee is better brewed
than eaten straight from the can.
When someone is dying
we should unpack the clever phrase
I am sorry. Wrenches
the wrong size should be distracted
until the right bolt arrives.
Inside your head is a map
of your house and inside that map
is where you actually live.
People doing jumping jacks
look like they’re trying
to start a fire by rubbing
the sticks of their body
together. Vague nomenclature
is not the correct response
to thank you. It’s surprising
that pencils and erasers get along
as well as they do. When dogs meet
it’s the scent gland not anus
they sniff. There’s the conviction
in every head that someone else
is happy. This is why we drool
from jets at green rectangles
of earth, why when we kiss
we push hard to reach the pillow
of the tongue. If we swapped
mistakes they might fit neatly
and with purpose into our lives.
I’ll lend you the day I locked
my keys in my mouth
if you give me the night
you got drunk and bought
a round of flowers for the house.
Whatever my father wants me
to know he tells my mother
who tells me. This reminds me
that if I put my ear to the ground
I’ll hear the stampede
of dirt no cowboy can keep
from rolling over my head one day.
The title gives Hicok license to go wherever he wants (which he does) in this stream of seemingly unrelated consciousness until, of course, he returns to his father at the end of the poem. Meanwhile, the reader is treated to a list poem that shows off his cleverness.
Hicok can do serious, too, as he does in this college-related poem:
ROTC
A bugle wakes the sky as boys hold hands over their hearts
and aim their eyes at a flag giving wind the only stars
it will ever touch.
When they twirl their wooden rifles, I see twelve planes
trying to take off made of human flesh and crewcuts.
My new envelopes taste of peppermint.
I will write and ask their mothers to send the blankeys
their sons went to bed with and held soft to their faces.
They will find in their attics the photo albums and baby shoes
that are the beginning of pacifism.
On weekends, the cadets wear clothes like the rest of us
wear and drink too much with the rest of us and scream
from the back of moving cars like everyone I know
is screaming and the Museum of Fire is burning down
and when they march on Monday, I think we’re being attacked
by leather shoes and hangovers.
The Museum of Ashes opens next week.
In their fatigues, the practice generals
look like shrubbery moving around campus and I’ve painted
my face over my face so hiding is what I do naturally.
When one of the cadets turns out not to be alive anymore
in Iraq because of how rude bullets are, they lower the flag
half way and speak of avenging blood, a name is chiseled
into stone, which is how the stone is moving
to the other side of town, piece by piece by name.
Little shadows live inside the names.
I’ve been trying to think of something more intimate
than the grave, possibly getting in there with the body
or carrying it around on my shoulders and stinking
of a perfume I like to call “What’s Our Hurry?”
Like the shadows living inside names chiseled in stone, this is a darker brand of commentary on war games on campus that come home to roost in foreign countries stealing otherwise long lives from young men. You can see some of the stream of consciousness bubbling in the narrative, too. Licked envelopes tasting of peppermint. Practice generals resembling shrubbery moving about campus. In retrospect, sad.
This 2007 outing was my first Hicok. Its generosity and unexpected semantics ensures it won’t be my last.
Two thoughts: Humor, first and foremost, and an indication of the wry and insightful stuff Hicok writes. And this: How often do I read of successful manuscripts having not one but multiple readers providing feedback to sharpen the final product? One undeniable advantage, I’d say, to academia (for its teachers) and MFA programs (for its students).
Here’s an example of Hicok’s associative wordplay:
Duh
My father is silent and distant.
The moon is up though sometimes
to the side which is also called
over there. Coffee is better brewed
than eaten straight from the can.
When someone is dying
we should unpack the clever phrase
I am sorry. Wrenches
the wrong size should be distracted
until the right bolt arrives.
Inside your head is a map
of your house and inside that map
is where you actually live.
People doing jumping jacks
look like they’re trying
to start a fire by rubbing
the sticks of their body
together. Vague nomenclature
is not the correct response
to thank you. It’s surprising
that pencils and erasers get along
as well as they do. When dogs meet
it’s the scent gland not anus
they sniff. There’s the conviction
in every head that someone else
is happy. This is why we drool
from jets at green rectangles
of earth, why when we kiss
we push hard to reach the pillow
of the tongue. If we swapped
mistakes they might fit neatly
and with purpose into our lives.
I’ll lend you the day I locked
my keys in my mouth
if you give me the night
you got drunk and bought
a round of flowers for the house.
Whatever my father wants me
to know he tells my mother
who tells me. This reminds me
that if I put my ear to the ground
I’ll hear the stampede
of dirt no cowboy can keep
from rolling over my head one day.
The title gives Hicok license to go wherever he wants (which he does) in this stream of seemingly unrelated consciousness until, of course, he returns to his father at the end of the poem. Meanwhile, the reader is treated to a list poem that shows off his cleverness.
Hicok can do serious, too, as he does in this college-related poem:
ROTC
A bugle wakes the sky as boys hold hands over their hearts
and aim their eyes at a flag giving wind the only stars
it will ever touch.
When they twirl their wooden rifles, I see twelve planes
trying to take off made of human flesh and crewcuts.
My new envelopes taste of peppermint.
I will write and ask their mothers to send the blankeys
their sons went to bed with and held soft to their faces.
They will find in their attics the photo albums and baby shoes
that are the beginning of pacifism.
On weekends, the cadets wear clothes like the rest of us
wear and drink too much with the rest of us and scream
from the back of moving cars like everyone I know
is screaming and the Museum of Fire is burning down
and when they march on Monday, I think we’re being attacked
by leather shoes and hangovers.
The Museum of Ashes opens next week.
In their fatigues, the practice generals
look like shrubbery moving around campus and I’ve painted
my face over my face so hiding is what I do naturally.
When one of the cadets turns out not to be alive anymore
in Iraq because of how rude bullets are, they lower the flag
half way and speak of avenging blood, a name is chiseled
into stone, which is how the stone is moving
to the other side of town, piece by piece by name.
Little shadows live inside the names.
I’ve been trying to think of something more intimate
than the grave, possibly getting in there with the body
or carrying it around on my shoulders and stinking
of a perfume I like to call “What’s Our Hurry?”
Like the shadows living inside names chiseled in stone, this is a darker brand of commentary on war games on campus that come home to roost in foreign countries stealing otherwise long lives from young men. You can see some of the stream of consciousness bubbling in the narrative, too. Licked envelopes tasting of peppermint. Practice generals resembling shrubbery moving about campus. In retrospect, sad.
This 2007 outing was my first Hicok. Its generosity and unexpected semantics ensures it won’t be my last.
November 25, 2008
Hicok seems like he has a perpetual stream of poetry running through his head at all times, and he just occasionally sits down to transcribe it. All the poems in the book feel like they could have started at any point, and continued to any length. Far from a negative, the effect is inspiring.
January 18, 2016
I started reading poetry in my early to mid teens, I started with a recommendation from a librarian to read David Lehman's Best American Poetry, so, pretty much, my first encounter with poetry was poetry fairly similar to Hicock's. Thats not to say that Lehman's poetry isn't diverse, it's to say that he and his editors tend to have a similar pattern, and thats very normal considering the theme is always contemporary american poetry. I've been reading poetry regularly for maybe 8 years now, and much like the acquisition of anything, language for instance, I have more procedural knowledge of it than declarative knowledge, that is, I can understand what to me is good poetry, I can pick up patterns, I can make a guess of the time in which a poem was written or if it is trying to emulate a time, a can guess maybe the country the poet comes from, maybe the movement they were influences by, but because my education so far has been more focused on proes and drama, I do not have the tools to describe to you what is uniquely contemporary american poetry, but if I could answer with a poet rather than a description, I would say it is Bob Hicok.
Bob differs from Marry Oliver and Sharon Olds, who are the more celebrated contemporary american poets (I was going to add louis Gluk and Mary Karr but those two are unique, singular and highly personal, I definitely prefer them over the first two). Oliver and Olds style respectively tend to me more attempts at capturing images of universal human experience, and the imagery, metaphors and general devices used tend to me more 'sophisticated' nature centered, human anatomy, classic objects of beauty. A typical idea of poetic with a feel of the 21st century. (again, Gluk and Karr are very different) Hicock on the other hand has a style thats more, All American life, daily objects, absurd juxtapositions, sort of like if Wordsworth was a 21s century urban american poet who had a knack for word play. It can get boring, but it can be very brilliant.
Hicock is the sort of poet whose poem you'd like to read in an anthology or written in a letter from a friend, singularly. Each poem alone is always brilliant, bizarre, as if he made a poem sandwich of his surroundings and his insides to capture a moment in time, but to read a full book of his, to me, was a little bit exhausting.
Bob differs from Marry Oliver and Sharon Olds, who are the more celebrated contemporary american poets (I was going to add louis Gluk and Mary Karr but those two are unique, singular and highly personal, I definitely prefer them over the first two). Oliver and Olds style respectively tend to me more attempts at capturing images of universal human experience, and the imagery, metaphors and general devices used tend to me more 'sophisticated' nature centered, human anatomy, classic objects of beauty. A typical idea of poetic with a feel of the 21st century. (again, Gluk and Karr are very different) Hicock on the other hand has a style thats more, All American life, daily objects, absurd juxtapositions, sort of like if Wordsworth was a 21s century urban american poet who had a knack for word play. It can get boring, but it can be very brilliant.
Hicock is the sort of poet whose poem you'd like to read in an anthology or written in a letter from a friend, singularly. Each poem alone is always brilliant, bizarre, as if he made a poem sandwich of his surroundings and his insides to capture a moment in time, but to read a full book of his, to me, was a little bit exhausting.
May 8, 2009
I'm happy I read this, but I'm not sure how much I'll take from it except for a part from one long poem where he praises his dog for eating deer shit:
she is coprophagous, a beautiful word
for this habit of finding use in waste
Sometimes I tell her no (from "My faith-based initiative")
Also, there is a long prose poem around the middle of the book ("A letter: the Genesis poem") that offers this little gem on immigration: "Many people here don't want elsewhere people to become here people."
Bob Hicok writes great, candid stuff on current events, and has ways of defamiliarizing familiar things with very simple language ("I gathered rocks beside the road and made them rocks / within the field by a sidearm motion"). I want to read other, earlier books of his.
she is coprophagous, a beautiful word
for this habit of finding use in waste
Sometimes I tell her no (from "My faith-based initiative")
Also, there is a long prose poem around the middle of the book ("A letter: the Genesis poem") that offers this little gem on immigration: "Many people here don't want elsewhere people to become here people."
Bob Hicok writes great, candid stuff on current events, and has ways of defamiliarizing familiar things with very simple language ("I gathered rocks beside the road and made them rocks / within the field by a sidearm motion"). I want to read other, earlier books of his.
May 22, 2017
It still seems counterproductive to assign a star rating to a collection of poetry.
That being said...I was leaning towards four stars with this one, but the final sequence of poems is damn near perfect. (Thirty-two dreams)
That being said...I was leaning towards four stars with this one, but the final sequence of poems is damn near perfect. (Thirty-two dreams)
December 31, 2022
I have a love/hate relationship with poems. I love the images, word play, and other delights at a line by line level, but I hate, or am deeply disturbed by, the stubborn refusal of most poems to prance about with their clothes off and show some overall meaning (Actually, full disclosure, it is clear what inspired quite a few of the poems, such as “ROTC”, “My last factory job”, and “Full flight”.)
That’s a lot like life, I guess. Since I must tolerate the unknowable in the open savanna of a lifespan, I should be able to stomach the unknowable in the tiny confines of a page, shouldn’t I?
But. I. Can’t.
Bob Hicok’s poems have plenty of interesting lines that will knock your teeth out. There are many images that will cut out new worlds for you.
Here are some:
…I fear what happens / after the pinhole at the end of this sentence. from “Waiting for my foot to ring”
In the middle of the battlefield / was a pie. from “War Story”
Rain crossed / my neighbor’s field at the speed of a million mouths / per second kissing corn. from “Odyssey”
.…somewhere else the sky is falling, / somewhere else it gets back up. from “My faith-based initiative”
They’re in a circle and the river says, I’ve never understood / round things, why would leaving come back / to itself?. from “In Michael Robins’s class minus one”
I stood / on the moment the earth changes its mind about the sun, from “Solstice: voyeur”
I cannot ask my mother to forego / cream cheese, pizza, she was cut open for my head, my door is a scar. from “Documenting a decision”
they think his heart now maybe his kidneys now / maybe doctors what do they know stay away / from doctors son yes dad from “Angels of mercy”
The sky was firing on all blue cylinders. from “Failure in meditation”
What we think of as wild I think of as honest. from “The new math”
The painter has eyes inside her ideas. from “A Theory of art as respiration”
The painter has answered by going to Ireland and learning a jig, / by returning to the questioner with a performance of this jig / while wearing a skirt called “I don’t know.”. from “A Theory of art as respiration”
I often cry over symbols for the reach / of the human spirit though not when I encounter / the actual thing. from “Theoretical love”
the last maple leaf doesn’t fall, stays / the winter, waving from “My ever after”
Bob Hicok has something to say; I firmly believe that. Bob Hicok has something to say; I firmly believe that. Bob Hicok has something to say; I firmly believe that.
But like many poets, he’s just moving his hands too fast for me figure out what he’s doing. I’ll worry about it more if he insists I place a bet.
I could have sat around writing poems my whole life too. All of us could’ve. Don’t you think?
That’s a lot like life, I guess. Since I must tolerate the unknowable in the open savanna of a lifespan, I should be able to stomach the unknowable in the tiny confines of a page, shouldn’t I?
But. I. Can’t.
Bob Hicok’s poems have plenty of interesting lines that will knock your teeth out. There are many images that will cut out new worlds for you.
Here are some:
…I fear what happens / after the pinhole at the end of this sentence. from “Waiting for my foot to ring”
In the middle of the battlefield / was a pie. from “War Story”
Rain crossed / my neighbor’s field at the speed of a million mouths / per second kissing corn. from “Odyssey”
.…somewhere else the sky is falling, / somewhere else it gets back up. from “My faith-based initiative”
They’re in a circle and the river says, I’ve never understood / round things, why would leaving come back / to itself?. from “In Michael Robins’s class minus one”
I stood / on the moment the earth changes its mind about the sun, from “Solstice: voyeur”
I cannot ask my mother to forego / cream cheese, pizza, she was cut open for my head, my door is a scar. from “Documenting a decision”
they think his heart now maybe his kidneys now / maybe doctors what do they know stay away / from doctors son yes dad from “Angels of mercy”
The sky was firing on all blue cylinders. from “Failure in meditation”
What we think of as wild I think of as honest. from “The new math”
The painter has eyes inside her ideas. from “A Theory of art as respiration”
The painter has answered by going to Ireland and learning a jig, / by returning to the questioner with a performance of this jig / while wearing a skirt called “I don’t know.”. from “A Theory of art as respiration”
I often cry over symbols for the reach / of the human spirit though not when I encounter / the actual thing. from “Theoretical love”
the last maple leaf doesn’t fall, stays / the winter, waving from “My ever after”
Bob Hicok has something to say; I firmly believe that. Bob Hicok has something to say; I firmly believe that. Bob Hicok has something to say; I firmly believe that.
But like many poets, he’s just moving his hands too fast for me figure out what he’s doing. I’ll worry about it more if he insists I place a bet.
I could have sat around writing poems my whole life too. All of us could’ve. Don’t you think?
July 14, 2011
Hicok surprises me in his writing. He manages to combine things that don't seem related and suddenly you stumble into something so thoughtful and eloquent, it feels a bit mind blowing. I went back and re-read many of these. I think you start to see traces of the idea of his wife being sick in one of them, and if you go on to read Words for Empty and Words for Full, this will become even more apparent.
February 9, 2021
While not a perfect book, Hicok remains particularly compelling here. His surreal and sometimes silly focus mixes with the seeming ease of his style, which often feels slightly dreamlike. These poems often feel like random and discursive thoughts and the familiarity of the voice of Hicok is what holds them together.
June 29, 2010
Another one of my extensive reviews: this book is amazing. That is all.
April 29, 2018
I had an existential experience with this book as it was a part of helping me to get through a dark period. It reminded me of those valuable things we have in life with all of their imperfect beauty and weightiness. This poetry somehow gave me hope. If there’s the possibility that someone else’s experience is currently deep and dark then I can recommend this book to you... for everyone else simply enjoy.
March 6, 2017
I find it very difficult to rate and review this poetry book. Mostly because I don't have much experience with modern poetry and have not much to compare it with, but also because Hicok's poems are so surreal and metaphysical it's hard to grasp their meaning, or feeling. Some poems felt like a drag, too long, too full of symbols I didn't understand (and seemed to be only understandable to the author), too feverish, but some did touch me. They seemed to stir something in me that I can't quite describe, something I feel poetry should do to you. They speak of sadness, and overthinking, and just being overwhelmed by the fullness of life, by just, well, all of it. That feeling that there's just so much, so often, and everything deserves consideration. But then again, that may be something only I recognize in it, because it's something I relate to. If you don't like surreal poetry, do not attempt this book, it will only frustrate you, but if it doesn't bother you, please try. It has some very good lines.
May 2, 2007
Bob Hicok is one of my favorite poets and I was so excited to get my hands on this when it came out last month. Bob Hicok is fantastic. There's something really blunt and real in his poems. Publisher's Weekly compares him to Billy Collins, but I think he's a lot more like Jeffrey McDaniel, although he takes it a step further than either of them (maybe quite a few steps further than Collins -- sorry, Billy). Um, I want to say tons of smart stuff about it, but I can't, it's just great. The poems I keep rereading from it: "My faith-based initiative," "A theory of art as respiration," "My career as a director," "A letter: the Genesis poem," "Her my body".
March 2, 2011
great collection by a great poet. hicok has a way of bringing everyday, understated occurrences and feelings to rupture. immensely talented and highly addictive. after i finished this collection i went and bought every single collection he ever put out, all of which exceeded my expectations.
also just a note, i never liked poetry until i read hicok and something about his talent, it's subtlety and almost it's meekness just wins you over. if you are a fan of franz wright, you will enjoy hicok.
also just a note, i never liked poetry until i read hicok and something about his talent, it's subtlety and almost it's meekness just wins you over. if you are a fan of franz wright, you will enjoy hicok.
December 21, 2009
Picking a poet isn't easy. People find poetry hard to appreciate but I think it's only hard to appreciate if you've reading the wrong the poet, If you're reading someone else's poet. You have to find one that you naturally connect with. I've found one. His name is Bob Hickok. He's my poet, so like anyone who calls their kid the best kid, I call Bob Hicok the best poet.
This book inspired me to create a youtube show:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TubeYouPo...
This book inspired me to create a youtube show:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TubeYouPo...
April 17, 2013
Arguably my favorite modern poet. He has a way, with simple words, to draw the reader into a subject under layers and layers of thought. My favorite one in this series is titled, "Team effort" and I read that one at least five times. I love his wry sensibility and deep contemplation which surfaces so effortlessly in each verse. This is what makes him my favorite I think, that he makes it look effortless- when writing poetry, excellent poetry, is truly never effortless.
May 24, 2013
Wish I could give this 4 1/2 stars.
This has some of my favorite work from Bob Hicok ever (In Michael Robinson's class is the first poem I ever read from him, and a poem I keep coming back to time and time again for inspiration in my work, Theoretical Love is also a great one), though there are a ton of poems in this collection and the energy and quality isn't necessarily sustained throughout.
This has some of my favorite work from Bob Hicok ever (In Michael Robinson's class is the first poem I ever read from him, and a poem I keep coming back to time and time again for inspiration in my work, Theoretical Love is also a great one), though there are a ton of poems in this collection and the energy and quality isn't necessarily sustained throughout.
May 6, 2013
There were some astonishingly beautiful poems in this collection, especially in the middle of the book, but there was an equal number (maybe more) that fell flat for me. The high points were worth 5 stars, but I couldn't justify giving the book a higher rating because of how many poems didn't click for me. It's still definitely worth a read, though.
July 27, 2010
More poetry. I thought I liked this book quite a lot when I read only the highlights, or heard them. Read all together, Hicok has hits and misses; however, he is the master of the poetic digression and can make lists of completely unrelated things into a tight argument about something not mentioned at all. His blue-collar background gives an accessible and personable tone to his work.
June 11, 2007
really beautiful collection - both comic and sorrowful
reminded me of how powerful well-placed humor is in the best writing
and also of the Woody Allen quote - comedy is simply tragedy plus time...
reminded me of how powerful well-placed humor is in the best writing
and also of the Woody Allen quote - comedy is simply tragedy plus time...
February 15, 2008
I love the layering of fresh images and narrative in this book. I have some favorites in this book that I keep coming back to over and over again, even though I've finished reading it. My favorites include "Her my body," "Elsewhere" and "Switching to deer time."
July 28, 2012
It took me several poems to get my bearings in this one. But I'm a fan, so I continued on...
Sure enough, by about 1/3 of the way in, the guy started blowing my head off with so many individual lines, as well as entire poems. This is the good stuff!
Sure enough, by about 1/3 of the way in, the guy started blowing my head off with so many individual lines, as well as entire poems. This is the good stuff!
May 23, 2014
This is another fantastic collection from Hicok, possibly my new favorite poet. I would rate this book just a touch less complete than Elegy Owed, but there are still amazing moments on almost every page. An absolute joy.
June 11, 2007
i really like the style of this poetry. completely accessible.
July 8, 2007
Love it!!
January 13, 2008
blistering, tender, "a softness of phantom limbs marching through the forest," a shiver, an assault on silence, a brilliant ballet of words, life on a page.
Read
May 15, 2009This Clumsy Living (Pitt Poetry Series) by Bob Hicok (2007)
October 2, 2010
This collection may cross into post-modernism too much for me.
September 18, 2013
In my opinion a This Clumsy Living is a vast improvement over Insomnia Diaries. This is Hicok comfortable at the wheel.
October 2, 2019
4.7/5
i’m loving reading poetry a ton lately and i’m so glad to have discovered bob hicok. planning on reading a lot more of his stuff. don’t have much to say besides that i loved it, i’m never really sure how to comment on poetry but this book was really rad
some quotes from my favorite poems:
Absolution
“Usually, as if you were a flower,
you have to put desire into your mouth and your mouth
against the air to get what you want.
You have to talk.
And in talking there’s more noise to shatter you.”
Her my body
“There is a piece of a second
during which a jet is not flying
nor is it on the ground.
I’m working on a theory
that no one can die
inside that piece of a second.
If you are comforted
by this thought you are welcome
to keep it.
Waiting for my foot to ring
“I was told about a poet who wrote a poem the day his wife was put into a box and given to the ground like it was Christmas. The person telling me the poem had on a green shirt on which trees of a different shirt were imprinted, he thought the poet was sick and I thought the poet had a mind that only lived in his hands.”
"Every time I write, I try to hold the world still by noticing how the world moves. Butterflies fear the pins of this method, I fear what happens after the pinhole in this sentence."
My faith-based initiative
“Doubt too must be the work of God
if God exists, and if God does not
God must be the work of doubt”
Beasts
“In the three years I’ve been away, he’s obtained fear, it’s below his eyes, the skin sagging and brown, he has two smokes going, a man of fire, one on the sidewalk, one burning to knuckles. We’re taking about the best ways to kill ourselves.”
The active reader
“Is there no mirror left to me but words,
why am i afraid of people, why do I talk
behind them to the edge of our shadows,
why did the continents drift, why didn’t
the thumb stay put, is fear what it means
to be human, am I what it means to be human,
why did the brain ransom the heart
to the mouth, why did we ever come down
from the trees?
(not quoted but I loveddd the poems “duh” & “documenting a decision,” “happy anniversary,” & “spam leaves an aftertaste”)
i’m loving reading poetry a ton lately and i’m so glad to have discovered bob hicok. planning on reading a lot more of his stuff. don’t have much to say besides that i loved it, i’m never really sure how to comment on poetry but this book was really rad
some quotes from my favorite poems:
Absolution
“Usually, as if you were a flower,
you have to put desire into your mouth and your mouth
against the air to get what you want.
You have to talk.
And in talking there’s more noise to shatter you.”
Her my body
“There is a piece of a second
during which a jet is not flying
nor is it on the ground.
I’m working on a theory
that no one can die
inside that piece of a second.
If you are comforted
by this thought you are welcome
to keep it.
Waiting for my foot to ring
“I was told about a poet who wrote a poem the day his wife was put into a box and given to the ground like it was Christmas. The person telling me the poem had on a green shirt on which trees of a different shirt were imprinted, he thought the poet was sick and I thought the poet had a mind that only lived in his hands.”
"Every time I write, I try to hold the world still by noticing how the world moves. Butterflies fear the pins of this method, I fear what happens after the pinhole in this sentence."
My faith-based initiative
“Doubt too must be the work of God
if God exists, and if God does not
God must be the work of doubt”
Beasts
“In the three years I’ve been away, he’s obtained fear, it’s below his eyes, the skin sagging and brown, he has two smokes going, a man of fire, one on the sidewalk, one burning to knuckles. We’re taking about the best ways to kill ourselves.”
The active reader
“Is there no mirror left to me but words,
why am i afraid of people, why do I talk
behind them to the edge of our shadows,
why did the continents drift, why didn’t
the thumb stay put, is fear what it means
to be human, am I what it means to be human,
why did the brain ransom the heart
to the mouth, why did we ever come down
from the trees?
(not quoted but I loveddd the poems “duh” & “documenting a decision,” “happy anniversary,” & “spam leaves an aftertaste”)
March 30, 2025
“…And deer are the best clocks because time
is twitchy, is a nervous thing
running away from us into woods,
into its own death and I don’t like
wristwatches, have never worn one,
don’t like cuckoos, all birds should fly,
don’t like Big Ben because people
were tortured in that tower, time
is politics of the worst sort,
is who controls the numbers
and it isn’t me, it’s never you
and just three days ago the clock
of the ground struck the hour
of twenty thousand deaths and tomorrow
the paper will say otherwise, will say more
and if I look into the brown eyes
of deer there is no time, no feeling
except peace, which isn’t real but neither
I sometimes hope are we.”
is twitchy, is a nervous thing
running away from us into woods,
into its own death and I don’t like
wristwatches, have never worn one,
don’t like cuckoos, all birds should fly,
don’t like Big Ben because people
were tortured in that tower, time
is politics of the worst sort,
is who controls the numbers
and it isn’t me, it’s never you
and just three days ago the clock
of the ground struck the hour
of twenty thousand deaths and tomorrow
the paper will say otherwise, will say more
and if I look into the brown eyes
of deer there is no time, no feeling
except peace, which isn’t real but neither
I sometimes hope are we.”
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