Hold

“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 wagger y that suggests there’s almost no problem that can’t be solved by this poet’s gentle humor.” —The New York Times Book Review

Bob Hicok’s tenth collection of poetry, Hold, moves nimbly between childlike revelry and serious introspection. While confronting the rampant hypocrisies of the American collective unconscious, Hicok is guided by his deep and tender sense of whimsy and humility. Pointing to the natural world as a mirror through which to rediscover human beauty, he pauses to unapologetically celebrate the wonder of living at all.

From “About the size of it”:

. . . my breath
shuttling in and out, as if it can’ t decide
between stay and go, the little bird
long gone by the time I realize
the sun has set and it will soon feel
like my father was never here, which is no big deal
compared to the erasures the world endures
and offers every day, except this one is mine

Bob Hicok teaches at Virginia Tech University and is the author of ten collections, including Animal Soul, This Clumsy Living , Elegy Owed, and Sex & Love &. He is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, respectively.