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Finding the Gossamer
In several versions of ancient mythology, the spider is the creator of the universe, a weaver of reality, a goddess that has built an intricate web to support the story of life. Our lives and the lives of the dead are threaded together, they form an intricate pattern of love, loss, ancestry, and home. By teasing out these delicate intersections, Hicks explores how we are connected to the world around us.
- GenresPoetry
77 pages, Paperback
First published October 28, 2008
13 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Hicks
24 books98 followersPatrick Hicks is the author of over ten books, including The Collector of Names, Adoptable, and This London—he also wrote the critically and popularly acclaimed novel, The Commandant of Lubizec, which was published by Steerforth/Random House.
His work has appeared in such journals and magazines as Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, The Missouri Review, The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, Salon, Chronicle of Higher Education, Commonweal, Huffington Post, Guernica, The Utne Reader, and many others.
He has been nominated seven times for the Pushcart Prize, he was recently a finalist for the High Plains Book Award, the Dzanc Short Story Competition, the Gival Press Novel Award, and the Steinberg Essay Prize. His poetry has appeared on NPR, The PBSNewsHour, and American Life in Poetry. His first novel held company among only 20 books selected for National Reading Group Month and it was listed as a Top Pick for First Year College Programs. A winner of the Glimmer Train Fiction Award, he is also the recipient of a number of grants and fellowships, including awards from the Bush Artist Foundation, the South Dakota Arts Council, the Loft Literary Center, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was recently a finalist for an Emmy and is the radio host of Poetry from Studio 47.
A dual-citizen of Ireland and America, he is the Writer-in-Residence at Augustana University as well as a faculty member at the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College. He has lived in Northern Ireland, England, Germany, and Spain, but has returned to his Midwestern roots. When not writing, he enjoys watching thunderstorms roll across the prairie with his British wife and he is a sucker for playing in the backyard with his son, who was adopted from South Korea.
His work has appeared in such journals and magazines as Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, The Missouri Review, The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, Salon, Chronicle of Higher Education, Commonweal, Huffington Post, Guernica, The Utne Reader, and many others.
He has been nominated seven times for the Pushcart Prize, he was recently a finalist for the High Plains Book Award, the Dzanc Short Story Competition, the Gival Press Novel Award, and the Steinberg Essay Prize. His poetry has appeared on NPR, The PBSNewsHour, and American Life in Poetry. His first novel held company among only 20 books selected for National Reading Group Month and it was listed as a Top Pick for First Year College Programs. A winner of the Glimmer Train Fiction Award, he is also the recipient of a number of grants and fellowships, including awards from the Bush Artist Foundation, the South Dakota Arts Council, the Loft Literary Center, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was recently a finalist for an Emmy and is the radio host of Poetry from Studio 47.
A dual-citizen of Ireland and America, he is the Writer-in-Residence at Augustana University as well as a faculty member at the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College. He has lived in Northern Ireland, England, Germany, and Spain, but has returned to his Midwestern roots. When not writing, he enjoys watching thunderstorms roll across the prairie with his British wife and he is a sucker for playing in the backyard with his son, who was adopted from South Korea.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 9, 2023
Another Ireland purchase that’s sat in piles in different places for years. These poems are chock full of imagery, metaphor, allusion, and so much else and yet simultaneously have such plain clear language. Like dropping a coin into a crystal-clear well of water and watching it drop all 30 feet to the bottom—seeing a million glimmers and twinkles as it fell and yet still having it in focus all the way down. These just hit me right THERE.
What a perfect ending for this year's Sealey challenge.
What a perfect ending for this year's Sealey challenge.
Displaying 1 of 1 review