Hold by Bob Hicok

Hold Reviews

• 
  Chris Roberts

  That was an autobiographical dream you didn't have,
  headstone inscriptions provide clues,
  the exact coordinates ping off silhouette cell towers,
  directing the poet to where his ego is billboard visible.
  
  #poem #verse #sonnet #poetry
  
  Chris Roberts, God Unvanquished (Mostly)
• 
  Cody

  bob remains the goat. favorite pieces were “the big book of therapy,” “zing,” and “if it’s not fixable, don’t break it”
• 
  James Smith

  Hicok is best as a kind of spiritual and emotional miniaturist, plumbing the microcosm of the human heart and the intimacy of relationships. He is also a wonderful poet of midwesterness. And he pulls off something that is so rare it is fantastical: the celebration of *marital* eroticism. But when, in this collection, he veers into the political--as any poet must today--the wheels fall off. The result is the poetic equivalent of MSNBC. The allusivity is gone.
• 
  Michelle

  Some of the political poems were really powerful and resonant, some were disappointingly glib and superficial. And my dude, congrats on "genuinely adoring the scent of [your] wife's vagina," but I'm not sure that merits mention here.
• 
  Sally Boots

  Hicok takes you for a wild ride with his poems and always deposits you somewhere insightful at the end. About 3/4 of the poems in this collection blew my mind. The other 1/4 took stream-of-conscious wacky in the nonsense direction—or maybe I just didn't get them. (One of the women in my book group said, "I think he's just getting stoned and then writing poetry." Pretty apt. But I'm still trying to work out whether I think that's a bad thing.) I particularly like the poems that touch on the current political climate. Hicok frames the pain of this moment in history in ways that feel like poetry, not like a rant, which is hard to do.
• 
  Saran Walker

  Loved his work in "Elegy Owed" but this one just felt a little flat to me. There are a lot of poems that feel sort of... impersonal, I guess. For instance, some poems regarding a friend's gay wedding, tutoring a refugee, and an acquaintance with breast cancer all feel like mining someone else's life for content, which would be fine, except that Hicok then tries to make all those subjects personal, and that's where it starts to feel a little disingenuous. If nothing else, there are still some really good moments where Hicok's trademark barrage of imagery shines.
• 
  Lauren Brown

  I've always been a huge Hicok fan, but this collection did not hit as hard as his work usually does. The first half of poems were great, but something happened in the second half of the book that totally turned me off. The political poems weren't poetry, just word vomit. Hicok and I even agree on most issues, but the poems were so lazy why even write them? Here's an example of what I can't believe even made it to print:
  
  "I don't think it's my biz whether my jizz ultimately becomes a tot or not"
  
  Just no.
• 
  Nat Baldino

  I was talking to a friend about his feeling that poets get worse over time, that when they approach old age they run out of things to say, or become too wistful. I don’t know if I agree, but I do know that I fully believe Bob Hicok will never feel old to me. Every new book of his I read makes me believe in the power of poetry, humor, tinged goofiness.
• 
  Aarik Danielsen

  The first things you notice about Hicok's work is how funny, self-referential and pop-culture savvy it is. But he's also profound in a sly way, with just one turn of phrase turning the whole poem on its head. I'll definitely be seeking out more of his work.
• 
  Shawn Aebi

  A powerful and playful collection covering social justice, white privilege, and broader topics. At times funny at times poignant. Dichotomy Lobotomy is a prize.
• 
  Jaclyn

  This book just cements my love for Bob Hicok! So good.
• 
  Ace Boggess

  Wonderful to read. This grows on me more each time I read it like the deep cuts on a great album.