December 31, 2023
Bob Hicok
Bob Hicok is the author of Water Look Away (Copper Canyon Press, 2023). He has received a Guggenheim, two NEA Fellowships, the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress, nine Pushcart Prizes, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in nine volumes of the Best American Poetry.
My goal is to be…
a man who helps war statues climb down
from their pedestals and walk to the nearest swing set
or sea, whichever they want when I convince them
there's a better way to live.
Voice really is a question of who a poet is…as a person, and how that’s expressed in their work. Fashion is probably the greatest threat to young poets, that they’ll be pulled towards saying what successful poets are saying and how they’re saying it, without necessarily sharing those concerns or tendencies…Art’s ability to help people believe that the self is real and can survive comes from the presentation of clear evidence of individuality and originality, the conveyance of a being that can’t be reduced or reproduced, only experienced.