Words for Empty and Words for Full by Bob Hicok

Words for Empty and Words for Full Reviews

• 
  Keith Taylor

  This continues to be a favorite Hicok book for me. It has those extraordinary poems about the Virginia Tech shooting, and I think those poems remain an essential witness to our time. Here's a long-ish review I wrote for "The Boston Review" back when the book came out:
  
  
  http://bostonreview.net/taylor-no-let...
• 
  Sebastian

  First read: June 9, 2019, Wednesday
• 
  Mark miller

  WORDS FOR EMPTY AND WORDS FOR FULL
  Written by Bob Hicok
  
  
  Book Reaction Paper
  By Mark Miller
  
  I think I finally understand the book after reading more and more of it. It just
  
  came to me that poems have several distinctive parts to them the whole poem and the
  
  individual parts that make up the whole. There is also another part to it and this is the
  
  ethereal part that stays with you after reading it. This is the part that I finally got. In the
  
  beginning I was struck by the speed at which it flows with so many change in directions.
  
  But then I slowed down and took some time to think. That is why poems are so
  
  important to our life in all cultures. It forces us to slow down, be still, and smell the
  
  roses. Poems are about mindfulness. I realized that I related to this person and to
  
  everything he was saying in time and space. He's from my generation and from my state
  
  of Michigan.
  
  The poem which gave me the clue I needed to put everything together was getting
  
  in line. It’s about a rock that’s alive who visits dads’ house many years after being
  
  abandoned by him. The dad says to rock-baby it wasn’t his fault but the poets fault who
  
  then blames it on God and God has no one to blame because he is God. And this was it.
  
  The main themes’ of his poems are Existentialism, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle,
  
  and our borderline society. I will elaborate in a minute, but this has really helped me in
  
  writing a poem by understanding all the elements which go into it much like a Math
  
  problem. By taking time and drawing the themes it makes you not only a better reader
  
  of poems but a better writer as well.
  
  The existentialism, which is seen in in most if not all of his poems, focuses on
  
  the condition of human existence, and in emotions, actions, responsibilities, and
  
  thoughts. The focus is more on the subjective experience than the objective. This
  
  brings me to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (quantum physics), a direct
  
  correlation with existentialism, the basics is that an observer can never measure both
  
  position and movement of a particle. If you know the movement or speed then
  
  you can not know the position and if you know the position you can not know
  
  the movement thus you still do not know where it is. Spooky science as one Scientist
  
  called it. This theory also supports the multi-universe theory. The cat in the box is both
  
  dead and alive at the same time. Only when an observer observes the cat does it
  
  change. The subjective experience alters the objective. The title of the book Words for
  
  empty Words for full imply s both until the reader reads it and decides. In my opinion I
  
  think the author knows and understands these principles well. In many of his poems he
  
  has inanimate objects alive, animate dead or dying, and some in between the two.
  
  All this takes place in an American Empire of illusion. While Americans were
  
  busy being entertained and pleasured, corporations and the industrial-military complex
  
  have brought American democracy to its death bed. Yes, past tense, as in were almost
  
  done and we don't even know it yet. And without a doubt Huxley's version of dystopia
  
  in Brave New World is here.
  
  In conclusion, the book has taught me more than I originally thought. It provided
  
  me with a better understanding and meaning of poems. I am a voracious reader of
  
  literature, horror, Science, Astronomy, history, and many other topics but not many
  
  poems, other than The Divine Comedy and Shakespeare. Poems require you to slow
  
  down, read it, and take a time out. In my opinion I'm becoming a better writer
  
  because I am learning how to read them first.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Biscuits

  
  http://xforwardprogressx.blogspot.com...
• 
  Jeffrey (Akiva) Savett

  Another fantastic collection by Hicok. He is one of my favorite poets.
• 
  Jacqueline

  I don't read enough poetry to have favorite poets but Bob Hicok is in my top two favorite poets
• 
  Angela Lim

  3.5 stars
  
  I hope to be overcome by the lyric,
  "try a little tenderness," since songs
  are just scatterings and bones without us
  and we are merely screamers without song.
  
  Of the three sections to this collection, my favorite was the last. This is where I was able to feel the most of his poetry and the power of language to divulge something big and raw out of something simple and mundane, like a house in the mountains or a cap turned inside out for good luck. There's a cleverness that is present in all of Hicok's poem, a playfulness with sound and a looseness to the images he chooses to bring together. Sometimes this gave his poems an abrupt and disjointed feel, and there was a bluntness and anger that could be tiring at times. And while I did appreciate his use of sonic and the frantic movement between objects, my favorite parts are when Hicock slows down and dwells on a single moment, allowing it to really open up into something new.
• 
  Joshua

  Often excellently devastating with some abstract dips that are harder to follow. There's enough to hurt here to break the frozen ice that Kafka imagined within us. For days I'd avoid the book just to spread out the pain.
• 
  Cody

  i love this collection!! a primer is my favorite bob hicok poem of all time, other highlights here include ‘punk, or a mouthful of sweat glands’ , ‘call me a lyre, i dare you’ and ‘one interpretation of your silence’
• 
  Samantha Seaman

  I love Bob Hicok and this book did not disappoint. He processes Virginia Tech shooting in second section. The first and last sections were my favorite- "After the Procedure" and "you are here."
• 
  Crystal

  The middle section was strong, poems on his experience of having been a professor of the Virginia Tech shooter and on the grief of losing students and colleagues in the shooting.
• 
  Sian Griffiths

  Five stars isn't enough. I want to give this book all the stars in the night sky.
  
  I love so much about this book, but perhaps most of all, I love its balance--how it is personal but political, how it is serious but self-mocking, how it is painful and funny. For example, this moment, in "Time Capsule," tries to explain to the future the irony of bailing out bankers but not the homeless:
  
  They were not, these fire-barrel people,
  given money, they were not
  because it sends the wrong message,
  because a contract is a contract
  because in America, we lift ourselves up
  by our bootstraps, which is impossible,
  have you tried? You can lift one leg at a time
  and hop or just stand there
  with your lone lifted leg
  looking like a great blue heron
  or an OK blue heron
  
  Over and over, Hicok made me laugh out loud at the same moment that my heart was breaking. His poems about the Virginia Tech shootings (the campus where he teaches) made as much sense of the senseless as I have yet seen--and yet they're not smug. Hicok doesn't take a posture of enlightenment; he doesn't blame. If, in a line, he seems close to either of these positions, he immediately mocks himself. The humility, the humanity, the confusion, and the sincerity of these poems combined to make this among my all time favorite poetry collections.
• 
  Jenny (Reading Envy)

  It is clearly ironic that the description for this volume includes the NYT review for his previous volume (as of 7.14.11 anyway), where it describe Hicok's poetry as being an escape from mundane life.
  
  That couldn't be any farther from the truth in these poems! The first third touches on aging and a failing economy and the fear of dying as his wife goes through major surgery either to fight or limit cancer. Then comes the big blow - a segment of poems written after the Virginia Tech shooting. Apparently Hicok was one of Cho's professors, and of course several of his colleagues and students were killed in those events. He tries to process it through the poems, and fails, and it is the most rare depiction of grief and the rest of emotions that go along with something so inhumane that I have ever read. I was bawling my eyes out, actually, particularly from In the loop:
  
  "Because this was about nothing. A boy who felt
  that he was nothing, who erased and entered
  that erasure, and guns that are good for nothing...."
  
  After I got through that section I could only skim the rest, and I'm sure there is thought-provoking and creative stuff there, but I was too afraid to give myself over to it. It is the strongest reaction I've had in a long time.
• 
  Michael

  "The gravel sounds like breakfast cereal eaten straight from the box."
  
  A good measure of the power or supposed validity of a written work is the lasting impression it may or may not leave on a reader. This book sat idle on my shelf for a time after I'd first opened it. Then suddenly I was immersed into the world that is Bob Hicok. The rhythm that these sometimes awkward phrases contain is one that disorients and rewards the reader:
  
  "this spring day, the giant steps/of the bus she has to climb, literally,/as you would a mountain, not thinking,/ for once, she will fall, but feeling,/for an instant, she will make it,/without ropes, in a pink dress, laughing."
  
  This book insists on a specific rhythm and space. The loudest notes ring in the last poem which is especially compelling evidence of Hicok's ability to encapsulate and transport readers into a place/time/ideology. In this case, the Midwest.
  
  This book lets us in, holds the door, and shadows our footsteps as we tear down that old shed with our best friend from high school.
  
  This book tells us everything it can.
  
• 
  José Gutiérrez

  Hard to convey the urgency with which you should pick up this or any other poetry collection by Bob Hicok, except to say he is without doubt the most vital, necessary American poet writing today. If you think this is an exercise in hyperbole, do yourself the greatest favor since getting that last biopsy or smashing haircut all your friends went batty over, and read “For the time capsule,” pg 95 or the first poem in the collection, “In these times.” Or dip into 3rd gear and take the scenic route along “Meditations on a false spring” pg 57. Come to think of it, just buy this book and tune into the pulse of a country as it hums out its last days of empire in city, factory, prairie, home and school. Not since Whitman or Ferlinghetti has America been so vindicated by one with such a generous bardic gift.
• 
  Matthew Murawski

  I liked this collection. It could have been a little shorter, and I think the middle and end were stronger than the first section. Many of the poems deal with Hicok's experience after the VA Tech shootings and the continuing post-Iraq invasion in the mid-2000s. There's a sense of personal and cultural trauma.
  
  "Connect" I liked, "One Interpretation of Silence" - " 'To the puppies' is a phrase // I carry around in search of the context / in which shouting it will change everything."
  
  "For the Time Capsule" rustled my jimmies in a good way; "Stop-loss" was a good (post?-)war poem.
  
  "Meditation on a false spring" I particularly enjoyed.
  
  "Whimper" and "Terra incognita" were my favorite of the explicitly VA Tech poems.
• 
  Patricia Murphy

  I happen to like to have a little fun when I read a book of poems. And in this volume Hicok manages emotional, political and intellectual gravitas, sprinkled with moments when I laughed out loud. Moreover, many lines made me wish I had written them. Some of my favorites: "I kiss her paper esophagus." and "Rage is to Eros as cunnilingus is to essential." and "these seconds are an autopsy/ of this word,/ suddenly." and "Here you might recognize language/ as one of the ways to end a poem." and "I am the sensual beneficiary/ of carnage."and "Think of the stupid answers/ to 'what time is it?'" and "the wind/ has a tune in mind when it touches the chime."
• 
  C

  This book makes me wish that there were a 3 1/2 stars option.
  
  I'm a bit torn about this collection. It's about 1/3 longer than it should be. Hicok ruined one of my favorite poems of his, "Hope is a Thing with Feathers that Smacks Into a Window" by extending the ending about 5 lines (I read the original version in an issue of Smartish Pace). And a lot of the politics in the book beats you over the head, even when you agree with most of it.
  
  Having said all that, at its best Hicok's work is brilliant, tender, beautiful, and hilarious. There are at least a dozen or so poems that are just perfect--and that's rare in any collection, even ones that are over 100 pages.
• 
  Emmy

  This was an amazing collection of poetry! Upon starting, I will admit I kinda hated it. I didn't understand Hicok's style of writing; I found him tedious and frustrating and SO CONFUSING. However, after reading through about a quarter of the book, I thought perhaps I would give him another chance. And halfway through, I was fascinated. By the time I finished the book, it felt as though I was running and had just found the edge of a cliff, teetering on the edge, waving my arms, and desperately wishing there was more before me. Just as the Bard said, parting is such sweet sorrow, as was finishing this book. I would love to get my hands on some more Hicok poetry in the future!
• 
  D'Anne

  This book is over 100 pages, which is long for a poetry collection. In total there were 9 poems that I thought were awesome, which is not to say all of the other poems were terrible, but then again, there were definitely poems where I was all, "Why is this poem in this book? Where is this guy's editor?" Also, the cover is absolutely terrible. It's an iStockPhoto of students on what looks like a suburban community college campus. The cover is a nod to the many poems in this collection that are about/inspired by the Virginia Tech shooting, but it does the poems no favors.
• 
  Brian

  What I like most about Hicok is his honesty and lack of sarcasm. His sense of humor relies more on a natural openness to the potential craziness around us, an openness that understands irony without needing to make it the centerpiece of all observation. Hicok is, in a word, authentic, and encourages us all to be, too:
  "... Shore up/ the adores: staves of water, lattice of prayer flags,/ the wind doting on devotion.
  ... To hold. The hold a request/ to be held by the fit of simply one thing/ to another, you one among."
• 
  Nathan

  Look, we're going with 4 stars because,
  I politely leave--on a coffee table
  in a coffee shop somewhere--
  any book that I don't like
  by, say, page 15 or so.
  
  And Bob Hicok is one
  of those poets I'm probably
  going to read, even when
  he's pissing me off...
  
  which he did a time or two
  in this still wonderful book.
  
  Thing is? When he hits it,
  he connects the bat with the ball
  like few others who are out there
  trying their best to play this game...
  
  Bottom line: I kept this book
  for my poetry shelf.
  That says a lot...
• 
  Meredith

  i don't know if this is relevant to the specific collection itself, but i learned, while reading hicok, that i respond very well to reading poetry out loud to myself. i'm very grateful for this realization. with that said, almost every poem affected me in some way, though i found the collection to be somewhat disjointed as a whole.
  
  at any rate, i need to find someone to read to other than my cats.
• 
  QS

  Not what I was expecting after reading a few of Hicok's poems floating around the internet, which may well have effected how I felt about the collection. There were a few poems that I really enjoyed, and a few lines in poems I was otherwise pretty ambivalent towards that I really liked, but for the most part I have to give this collection a straightforward "meh". Not a spectacular collection here, and it was a little too long, but it's not bad.
• 
  Sarah

  Gorgeous. Bob Hicok should seriously be considered for the next Poet Laureate. Even if you don't normally read poetry, Hicok is accessible without being pedestrian; narrative and language and imaginative leaps work together complex themes that comment on our contemporary state of living--what does it mean to be a human in the US in the 21st century...
• 
  Ace Boggess

  Not my favorite Bob Hicok collection. Even so, this book is worth it just for the section on the Virginia Tech shootings. Those poems are so powerful and rich with emotion. The reader feels things that can't be anticipated, which is something to value and savor. Very compelling.
• 
  Rynell

  I read this book last year, but I have recently re-read it. This is one of the best collections of poetry I have ever read.
• 
  Allyson

  Comments forthcoming.
• 
  Beth Diiorio

  I usually love a variety of poetry. This however, was terribly disconnected, rambling, and inane.