Hold - Bob Hicok (Copper Canyon Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Hold.  Bob Hicok.  Copper Canyon Press.  Port Townsend, Washington.  2019.

The South is the country I live in now

How I got talking to the guy I don't remember

on Sullivan's Island. Our dog was still alive

and had walked repeatedly illegally

on the beach according to the signs. Dolphins

needled back and forth, stitching waves together

almost close enough for me to hit them

with a rock, had I a better arm and more spite.

My wife held the shell of her sea-sounding head

to the shell of mine, we were empty

of worry and work and had seen where turtles

had come in to lay their eggs, I think

is what I pointed out to the guy

casting his line into an ocean to ask

what bounty it cared to share. Or the existence

of weather. Surrealism in French cooking. Whatever

we were talking about, smack-dab in the middle

or muddle of a sentence, I realized

I was looking at Fort Sumter and said, Oh my God,

that's where the Civil War began, my God

being no god but who's counting. And without

changing expression or clothes, levity or levitation,

he said, Yes, that's where the War

of Northern Aggression began. You should probably

know we were standing where slaves

had been brought in, since that's still a thorn

or red-hot poker in the paw of America

we're aces at pretending isn't there. Our height,

weight, color were very similar, and yet, had I or he

a womb or even eight, there's not a chance

we'd ever procreate, based solely on our views

of an island, making us technically

different species. I'm only thinking that

now. In the moment, what stood out was the gap

between the end of my sentence and the beginning

of his, something like a thousandth

of a breath, meaning the idea that the South

and slavery should have been left alone

is a loaded gun he carries everywhere he goes.

And of course we're not different species

but two guys with the same number of legs

and head and chromosomes, sons of the same mother

fucking war that isn't over.

💫💫💫

All Today's book of poetry can do is to apologize and hold our heads in shame, we've never read Bob Hicok before.  Don't we feel foolish?  Hold is Mr. Hicok's ninth collection.  We will hang our heads, but we'll also send Milo, our head tech and book scout, out into the ether to find Bob Hicok's other eight books.

One read through Hold and Today's book of poetry knew we were in the company of greatness.

These are great poems.  Capital G, Capital R, Capital E, and so on.  Hold is so damned smart and beautiful and true.  These poems - these are the poems that other poets dream of writing.

Bob Hicok goes right at the thing, no playing around on the edges, no confusion.  At one point Hicok tells us that "running with scissors is the only way to make danger understand."  You just have to laugh.  And then Hicok is on to some sunny, sexy ode of kind and generous persuasion directed at his wife, another on the importance of being a good person.  Hicok uses the legendary Boston Celtic, Bill Russell, as his example of a good person.

Today's book of poetry has a BBall past, Hicok's ramble on Russell made this basketball loving fool gobsmacked happy.

Encore

At the rehab center

late at night when my father

presses the call button,

someone hurries in

and shuts it off, thus maintaining

their quick-response rate, but leaves

without helping him pee, he tells me

in a whisper on the best

spring day of the year so far,

of the century: I could have picked

two hundred

million snowdrops on the way in

had I patience

and a doll's fingers.               He's afraid

of angering the staff and has learned to pee

on himself with dignity.        It's all

in the not-crying.                   In imagining

he's a chunk of wind

the next day while his penis

is being washed

and he can't feel it, just a sock

with a hole in it.                    I'm afraid

of the future.             That I'll need a gun

to help me out of the jam

of having a body.       Is what I'm thinking

while holding his hand, while believing

there's nothing to be done

about the weight of the night

on his chest except to lift him

and carry him home and give him back

to his own bed to live in and die in,

as he and mother

gave me to the sun all those years ago

to run under and end up here,

not knowing what to do

about the rumor that part of us

goes on after the heart's last sigh,

other than applaud the possibility

as I would a woman

standing up from a piano

after the gazelles of her hands

have stopped running, the music over

but not the chance for more music

if we clap enough that she believes

how desperate we are and that only

she can save us.

💫💫💫

This cat Hicok isn't afraid of a single thing, love, sex, death.  Lob them in and Hicok hits them out of the park.  Hold burns.

Bob Hicok makes Today's book of poetry a happy camper.  Bob, as we will now, overly familiar as hell, call Mr. Hicok, makes us want to write better poems.  Even more importantly, Bob makes us want to read more.  As old Willy Shakes had Miranda tell that old cat Prospero, "O brave new world. That has such people in it."  And you all know how much Today's book of poetry loves William the Shake.  Now Today's book of poetry is going to tell you how lucky we are to have a poet like Hicok.

Our morning read was a little more difficult than usual and Today's book of poetry will explain that in a moment.  Please know we gave Bob and his very fine Hold our open hearts and our best efforts.  None the less our Today's book of poetry did a sterling job.  Of course Hicok's poems were extremely helpful to the effort.

Today's book of poetry just loved the way the man thinks.

Our morning read was tempered by the news that Canadian poet Nelson Ball died yesterday.  We knew that Mr. Ball had been ailing.  Nelson Ball is one of the poets Today's book of poetry most admires and we are terribly sad to hear of his passing.  We do know he was with friends

Civilization

We were going along. Holding 

hands. When we came across a man

punching another man. My lover's

a creature wired with surprising

windings, and noticed the man

doing the punching looked tired.

She offered and was accepted

in her offer to punch the other man

for the punching man awhile.

Then gave me a look that said,

Where are your manners?

and I donated the punched man

my body to be his body

for a period of time. During

this rest, they took a tender

interest in each other, asking

after children and spouses

and bets on long-shot horses,

even sharing a ham sandwich

one had kept hidden & warm

under his arm. when they ran out

of things to say, rather than accept

the onslaught of silence, the one

tapped her shoulder and the other

mind. To his thank you, I said

a bloody you're welcome as we

walked off again holding hands.

Of all the reasons I love

my love, not the least is

she knows how the world works.

Badly. Etiquette is the way

she fights back. And with a right cross

I can tell you from experience

is lovely. My head still rings

from how considerate she is.

💫💫💫

This last poems tells me that Bob Hicok must have a K.  Today's book of poetry has a K and if he were a better writer he would have tried to write "Civilization" for her.

Take our weary word, Hicok is a poet who will break and strengthen your heart at the same time.

Bob Hicok

ABOUT THE POET

Bob Hicok's poems have appeared in a wide variety of magazines, journals, and anthologies, including the New Yorker, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and numerous volumes of The Best

American Poetry.  His books have been awarded the Bobbit Prize from the Library of Congress and named a "Notable Book of the Year" by Booklist. Hicok has worked as an automotive die designer and a computer system administrator. He is currently teaching at Purdue University. When asked in an interview "What would Bob Hicok launch from a giant sling shot?" he answered, "Bob Hicok."

BLURBS

"Hold… urges readers to consider our faults as a nation—environmental destruction, gross financial inequities, police brutality. By turns wry and witty, Hicok’s plain-spoken writing highlights some of the pleasures and pains in this world, and humanity’s need for reflection."

     —Washington Post

"In Bob Hicok’s Hold… the poet’s humor, punning, wit, wisdom, and humility lead to small revelations, introspections, and musings on the human condition—all in the face of danger and atrocity. If Hold asks many questions throughout, they are not rhetorical, nor are they theoretical—instead, they’re practical questions about our world. In a unique blend of punchline and sincerity, Hicok confesses, ‘I’m scared, but not shitless.’ As its title might suggest, this book yearns for and struggles to hold strong to self and to community, to hold to the body, to hold to the world, to hold—yes—to optimism, to hope."

     —Arkansas International

"Bob Hicok is a spectrum... I’d love to see an MRI of his brain while he’s writing, as the neurons show us what’s possible, how a human can be a thought leader, taking us into the future… Hicok interrogates the world with mercy andwit and style and intelligence and modest swag. He’s one of America’s favorites—and to make the reader want to share the poet’s reality fulfills poetry’s finest aspiration."

     —Washington Independent Review of Books

"In his ninth collection, Hicok navigates a world bereft of empathy and kindness, leading by example with a charm and emotional intelligence that speaks to a deep insight into the human condition… Mixing cleverness with tenderness, Hicok demonstrates how to be a beacon of light in the darkest of settings."

     —Publishers Weekly

"As always, the multi-award-winning Hicok manages to be both freshly whimsical and knife-sharp insightful in his latest collection."

     —Library Journal

"Bob Hicok is that rarity, a cheerful contemporary poet―if not completely happy, still hopeful and celebrative."

     ―Los Angeles Review of Books

"Yet ultimately the most potent ingredient in virtually every one of Bob Hicok’s compact, well-turned poems is a laughter as old as humanity itself, a sweet waggery that suggests there’s almost no problem that can’t be solved by this poet’s gentle humor."

     ―The New York Times Book Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqnxbQ8Vx48

Poetry@Tech

Bob Hicok

Video: PoetryAtTech

poetry@coppercanyonpress.org

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Goodnight Nelson Ball

1942 - 2019