Elegy Owed

I am, admittedly, a huge Bob Hicok fan. I have all of his book (some of which I've previously reviewed on Amazon) and have felt privileged to watch his work evolve over the years in real. And in "Elegy Owed," his latest collection, he seems to have taken an enormous leap!I remember seeing a Mark Rothko retrospective in DC when I was younger, and -- knowing how his painting style was going to end up -- marveling as the timeline the exhibition allowed me to watch the figuration in this paintings getting slighter and slighter, as the evocative color wash backgrounds get bolder and bolder. When he finally removed figures from his paintings altogether, his paintings pulsed and glow with pure color and emotion. You didn't need to understand what he was trying to express with the painting, but rather needed to just open yourself up to what it evoked in you.I thought of this a lot while reading "Elegy Owed," as Hicok seems to have taken a big step away from traditional narrative work. This isn't to say this pieces don't sing with narrative elements, but images and tones are sometimes allowed to shimmer and glow without full context, and it is scary and delicious to allow this sorts of unmoored poems find a place in our reader hearts.While the book is infused with themes of death, loss and betrayal, Hicok's stunning lines and turns, as well as his constant self-awareness ("We didn't jump-this is a poem" he writes in a poem titled "To speak somewhat figuratively about S.") still very much electrify. I feel in love with his work again and again with stanzas like "At the funeral, she wore a tricycle being pushed by her father / when she was five, her legs out to the side. // That's only true in this poem, like the cloud I'm looking at / is only true in this sky. / In all other skies, this cloud is a lie."Or "When my father dies / naturally I'll want to call him / and tell him my father has died, he won't pick up, I'll decide / he's out raking leaves, that leaves are sullen, that I'm hungry / that my father hasn't died, and when he finally answers, / I'll stand in the kitchen wondering why I called, most / of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich completed, / all that will remain is for the parts to be joined, the jelly / to the peanut butter wing, I'll tell my father / I'm cooking, he'll nod and I'll hear him nod."I mean, my stars, it just knocks me out! And those are just two examples!Fans of his more narrative and concrete work should know there are a lot of mysteries in this book that won't be answered for you -- but that's a part of its delight, and a part of Hicok's wonderful journey as an artist. With "Elegy Owed" we are given all the bright and dark washes of his every evolving emotions, and it is a beautiful thing.

Hicok is sort of a modern, American Larkin - that is he's dry, a bit droll, but probably a bit loopier, a bit more playful with language and image, but less of a diction-maven than Philip. (I don't mean that last part in anyway to degrade Hicok's work, as I'm sure it's a stylistic choice he's consciously made.) Anyway, I love his work, and his admirable mix of the profound with the tragicomic. Hopefully Bob remains prolific, as I plan on continuing to follow his poetic journey wherever he goes. Thanks for another great set, Mr. Hicok.

As always, Bob Hicok's poems come at you with humor and charm without losing the essential seriousness of the subjects he's exploring. I lived through these poems as if I were there, witnessing and feeling everything he described. In short, this is the best collection I have read so far in 2013.

But once you have it there is no going back. Hicok's voice is so true, and so plain-spoken, that you begin recognizing yourself in his words very soon. A special kind of poet, perhaps, but an extremely thoughtful and rewarding one.

Really good contemporary poetry. Quite enjoyable. A skilled Poet. Good poetry yet lives in America. His other books are just as good.

I am in love with this collection. Beautifully written, heartbreaking, and honest. Bob Hicok is a treasure.

The humor! The surprises! The depth! The wordplay!

Bob Hicok surprises us on every page of this latest collection of his poems. He deals with death and mourning in his own language, his own perspective and the result is some of the more initially tough and yet beautifully constructed poems we are finding at the moment. Some background: Bob Hicok is an American poet, born in 1960. He currently is an associate professor of creative writing at Virginia Tech. He is from Michigan and before teaching owned and ran a successful automotive die design business. Gritty, complicated, and earnest, Elegy Owed breaks--then salvages--the rules for mourning. While poet Bob Hicok remembers the departed as ephemera or skin cells, fog is invited to tea and the beauty of dandelion fluff is held for ransom. Hicok's language is so humid with expectation and fearlessness that his poems create a clandestine manual to survival.According to the Poetry Foundation, `Hicok's poetry is known for its accessible, meditative style. Narrative and associational, his poems are at once funny and wry, poignant and silly, smart and sad: they offer varied portraits of the lives and stories of working people, violence, pop culture, unexpected beauty, and trenchant observations on human nature. Over the course of his career, Hicok has evolved into one of contemporary poetry's most popular poets.'Some examples of Hicok's poetry follow:THE ORDER OF THINGSThen I stopped hearing from you. Then I thoughtI was Beethoven's cochlear implant. Then I listenedto deafness. Then I tacked a whisperto the bulletin board. Then I liked dandelionsbest in their afro stage. Then a breezeheld their soft beauty for ransom. Then no onethrows a Molotov cocktail betterthan a Buddhist monk...from NOTES OR A TIME CAPSULEThe word terrorI'll bury the word terrorto be free of the word terror......If terror is saidseven times in a row, it loses meaning becomeshumdrum, a mere timpani of ear.If terror is said seven hundredthousand million trillion times, I am being rapedby a word.ODE TO ONGOINGI'm driving along,or painting a board or wonderingif we love animals because we can't talk with themmore intimately that we can't talk with Godand the whole time there's this background humof sex and devotion and fear, people tellinggood-night stories or leaving their babiesin dumpsters but mostly working hardto feed the future what it needs to grow strongand prefer sweet over sour, consonanceto dissonance, to be the only creatures who noticethe stars or at least use them metaphoricallyto go on and on about the longing we harborin such tiny spaces relative to the extentof our dread that we're in this all alone.This is a book of powerful, exquisitely crafted poetry, poems that we can't ignore if we are to find a meaning to existence when all else is contradicting our attempts at positive thoughts. Bob Hicok is a major poet. Grady Harp, May 13

I read Bob Hicok's work in American Poetry Review and immediately wanted to read more of his work. The subject matter of this book isn't as light as I'd hoped but the poems are breathtaking.

Blunt, surprising, poetic, real, without pretension and wise, and often funny. I even carry it around with me for long car trips. Highly recommend.