Bob Hicok is assistant professor of English at Virginia Tech University. He is the author of Insomnia Diary, Animal Soul, Plus Shipping, and The Legend of Light. A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Hicok is the recipient of the Felix Pollak Prize, an NEA Fellowship, the Jerome J. Shestack Prize, and two Pushcart Prizes. His poems have appeared in three volumes of Best American Poetry.
"At his best, [Hicok] has always fused deeply wounded moments of
pathos with an oddly welcome levity, much like everybody's favorite
uncle who's never afraid to tell a good joke at a funeral, even if
it's his wife lying in the casket. And the same can be said of
'This Clumsy Living', perhaps Hicok's most obscure and mature book
to date. Most notably, and with a heightened political
consciousness in tow, these poems meditate on the tyranny of the
human condition in the early twenty-first century."
--Barn Owl Review
Hicok's new collection will further broaden the reputation of a
poet already celebrated at mid-career; his Animal Soul was
nominated for a National Book Critics Circle award in 2002. Hicok
is known for his muscular, witty, and charming language, and if
poetry is a surrealist mechanism made of words, then this is a
perfect poet. But is poetry such a mechanism? Though Hicok never
misses a chance to make fun and to have fun, his poems offer a
great deal more than ready playfulness. What elevates Hicok above
many talented--but limited--pyrotechnists is his brave openness
toward his (and our) feelings. He does not merely show off his
tricks in front of the world; he embraces it. As he says in a poem
about cancer, "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." Ultimately,
this collection works because it dwells on human experience and
because at its best the language is charged with unforgettably
lyrical wisdom. Recommended for all poetry collections.
--Library Journal
"Disarmingly quotable. . . . Offers an unruly and winning
combination of brio and bizarrie, halfway between Billy Collins and
Dean Young."
--Publishers Weekly
"Bob Hicok's poetry is a fleeting comfort, a temporary solace from
the chaos of the world. Smart, honest, powerfully inventive, his
writing asks the biggest questions while acknowledging that there
are no answers beyond the imposed structure of the page."
--Los Angeles Times
" The arrival of This Clumsy Living is cause for celebration, as it
firmly places [Hicok] among a collection of astute poets with a
keen eye for both the common and the extraordinary, and confirms
these poems, at turns playful and disturbing though always
emotionally charged, as some of the finest being written
today."
--American Book Review
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