Hold

In his ninth collection, Hicok (Sex & Love &) 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. Hicok identifies societal ills-including police brutality, renascent Nazism, and unfettered capitalism-without becoming mired in cynicism. To be alive, in Hicok's esteem, is a blessing that should not be wasted: "why punch the world in the face/ when that's a very big face." Instead, he celebrates human possibility, intimacy, grace, and "the crinkle-crinkle/ of the candy wrapper of the soul." In a hilarious send-up of American individualism titled "There's no i in unity after the first i," Hicok writes of Frank Sinatra's hit, "'My Way' should only be sung underwater,/ so the narcissism is softened a bit/ by drowning." In "For love of the game," he imagines the Green Bay Packers huddling on the field to discuss Stephen Hawking and Susan Sontag in a comment on toxic masculinity and homoeroticism in sports. In more personal poems, Hicok contends with the specter of death, both his own and the difficulty of watching one's parents age and prepare for their own ends. Mixing cleverness with tenderness, Hicok demonstrates how to be a beacon of light in the darkest of settings. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

As always, the multi-award-winning Hicok (Sex & Love) manages to be both freshly whimsical and knife-sharp insightful in his latest collection: "The point of love/ is to lie consistently and with an eye/ toward the better world that will never exist." Life's rough patches, its sheer averageness, our inevitably not being that attentive-all are Hicok specialties handled with finesse. Discussing retirement, Hicok starts by observing that his brother was "[worried] about how expensive it is/ to get to the finish line, let alone die," then pulls out that knife and says half-plaintively, half-caustically, "This is not the life we wanted, is it?" There are personal meditations (e.g., on inadvertently killing a bat) and perhaps a stronger look at social issues than previously: "he accepted/ the orthodoxy of your cop// fist," says one poem; another muses tartly, "It's interesting to me there's a minimum/ but no maximum wage." VERDICT Hicok pours forth his incisive observations rat-a-tat, and occasionally one falls down, but he remains good company for most readers. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Verve is to élan what kissing is to kissing longerUnto my soul, I wear a crown of Legosyou can't see.I am the king of doing wheelieson the Stingray bicycle of my mindwhile breaking rocks beside youand every other convictin sales. Sure, what kind of royaltyburps root beer out his nose?I understand how far I amfrom the example Darth Vader setby blowing up planetsto teach the universe who's boss.Light is boss, which makes godEmployee of the Monthevery month. Every second,a little less than a second passesif I go fast enough downhill,so technically I'm alwaysin bonus time. What's that old saying --you have to break a lot of eggsagainst your forehead to makethe most stubborn child laugh.I'm taking the tree swing at face valueas the only currencythe afterworld will acceptand holding on to my yippeesuntil they're vintage or classicor whatever the hip nomenclature isamong the avant-guardians,the guys and gals who are part of teamBlack Hole. I'm part of teamYes You Can Divide by Zero. It's messy,but so are the best burritosand the best sexwhile eating burritosand running with scissorsis the only way to make danger understandthat whatever point it's trying to make,I'm only three-eights listeningTwenty-three percent of the timeand won't be its minionor sock puppet. The rest is gravyif it's mashed potatoes day.By my watch, it's quarter pastlet's get on with singing the tuba partsif we have to, if not all of the musescan come out to play.There are two of us hereand that's a quorumif one lights the matchand one seconds the motion.Throwing a life lineSay you're a professor and one of your studentsshot and killed thirty three people.Say it's years later. Fall's begun and kidshave that eager look of tulips in their faces,of green life pushing up from the groundtoward sun. In the smile of one passing,you see the joy of one who passed,one of the thirty three and follow herwith your imagination. You give her lifein a poem by having her run along a beach,her children behind her and their grandparentsbehind them, everyone wanting dinner,everyone wanting stars to come outand be their silly, shiny selves, everyone wantingthat next little breath. But let me ask --are you drinking again? Have you driven your carinto a tree? Do you have a hurricanefor a heart? Do you wake on the wrong sideof the bed -- the bottom, not the top?Say you're so desperate for gun-controlthat you're thinking of appealing to conservativesby suggesting that murder is abortionwhen one considers the children this womanwas likely to have had, the childrenyou just gave her in your poembut are in danger of killingif you let your anger take that political turn.Don't do it. Don't you see that poemsmake horrible legislation and even worsebullet-proof vests, so brittleand thin-skinned? Just let her live.Let her run with the kite of her childrenbehind her. That's what I'd doif I were you. And the drinking.The driving into trees. I'd do those too.I'd drink and crash and write one poemfor every day of her life. Hell. I'd drink moreand crash better and write two.Why notKids. They think everything is possibleto order on pizza. Extra moon. Cat hair. The ideasof Jean Jacques Rousseau. One of the speciescame by my office the other day to tell meshe'd decided to walk to Peru. She was so happyto have a heart and legs that I was remindedof otters spinning in water but didn't tell herthat her mood had this aquatic zest, it was enoughto be splashed by the joy of her intention.The razor cuts on her left arm were as orderlybut more scabbed over than the picketsof every fence I wish I could still jumpsimply by deciding to do so. I thought,as the more adult-shaped person in the room,I should ask important questions, like how manypairs of shoes do you think Gandhi hadand is there a way to incentivize good willand what t-shirt would you bring back from the deadif you could, mine was blue and madefrom the actual Aegean. Most of usget about six minutes to believewe can walk through flames. I checkedand the faculty handbook requiresin such moments that I say, Why stop at Peruor ever, why not levitate, maybe there's a piccoloinside you waiting to get out. While I look appallingin the uniform, cheerleading's the callingthat's called for in nine out of ten head-oncollisions with the truth, otherwise life's a lotof library fines and chemo and shawarmawith beef when you ordered the chicken. Peru.Rhymes with Camus. Lee Ann Rimeswith "can too." The good days, I wonderhow much zoom I have left in my bones.The bad days, I know.The impulse: to holdThis. This greenest green. Green of this forest,this second, of electron transfer reactionsin thylakoid membranes. Green from Old Englishgrowan, to grow. Green of the heart chakra,of leaves richer than money. I look upfrom a hoe, a stove, from words I've readso many times they've erased my eyes, look upand know: every green after this greenis less so. Less sun-addled and sentientand kind. Did you know hemoglobinand chlorophyll have similar structures?That we're almost treesalmost being us. O hyperemerald cousins.O o. This minute, this fingersnap,this wavelength of five hundredand seventy nanometers. I look upfrom my subatomic dismembermentand feel summer's about to loseits swashbuckle, its shine, become hang-dog,self-referential, blind.Green of the tipping pointbetween the world being drinkableand the world being dry. This instantsheened by thriving. Doe-shy. Startled.Gone as soon as I'm thrilled it's here.This luck. This wish. This life. Excerpted from Hold by Bob Hicok All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.