The Legend of Light (Volume 1995) (Wisconsin Poetry Series) by Bob Hicok

The Legend of Light (Volume 1995) (Wisconsin Poetry Series) Reviews

• 
  elise amaryllis

  4/5
  i didn’t like this collection as much as I did the others i read by him, but there were definitely some gems in it. not rlly sure what else to say. the entirety of “The Dead” blew me away but i just quoted a few lines. same with “AIDS.”
  
  some lines & quotes i loved:
  
  “Masked, they cut you, peel back
  your skin for the legend of light
  to enter your body. In this moment
  they love you. You’ll know this
  years from now, when being a rug
  you feel their hands inside you,
  a shock of warmth, invasion of concern
  as if you were back on the table
  but aware and aware of the fear
  dilating their eyes. How else can it be
  for the strangers who take your breath,
  contain it in a machine and give it back,
  Its meter undisturbed? They cut to flaw,
  down to a blue tumor the size of an old e.
  As they do they think of time, how little
  it takes for the riotously dividing cells
  to reach blood, to enter the cosmos
  of a body and travel to another organ,
  another world, advancing cancer’s
  parasitical flowering. Finally they try
  to erase any sign they were there,
  stitch and staple where they’ve cut.
  If done well it’s like walking backward
  across a newly mopped floor. There
  are only a few clues, in this case
  a scar and the fact on any trivial day
  you’re still alive.”
  
  — Surgery
  
  “If you could embrace
  or hover about the dead,
  a lover licking their fingers
  or judge
  with a rat’s black eyes,
  you’d have your moments
  of tenderness and retribution
  the chance to rub a friend’s canceled chest,
  to stand before the father
  who beat you with the leg of a chair
  and pain his eternity
  with your unexpected forgiveness,
  to smell your child’s skin as it was in sunlight
  or dance with your wife again
  to the Dipper Mouth Bues,
  to stare into the labyrinth of their eyes
  until the visitation ends
  and you’re left alone with the moon,
  which you’ve also taken for granted
  
  They’ll never come,
  though this won’t keep you
  from calling their names
  when there’s music in the elms
  and you’re snapped awake
  by the dream that’s trying to kill you.”
  
  — The Dead
  
  “I don’t know
  if it’s a miracle or sin
  that I can place my teeth
  in a glass of water at night,
  and wonder if this stranger’s heart
  sewn into my chest isn’t lonely
  and slowly dying of grief, if it
  will simply stop and leave me
  waving my arms in the air. I
  didn’t expect any of this,
  the moments when I forget
  a city, a person, and the days,
  made up of such moments, perhaps soon
  the years, but I’m grateful
  for the terror of these surprises
  given how it might have turned out,
  given that I expect the alternative
  to be nothing at all.
  
  — 85
  
  “And when my mother kisses me
  I cried in the way we sometimes do—
  no tears, a burning force
  behind the face,
  pain turned upon itself,
  a kind of emotional cannibalism—“
  
  “I wanted to assure them
  I’d been loved
  that there’d been someone
  whose hand I’d held
  whose weaknesses I’d never betrayed.
  How is it that people exist
  so far apart
  that we stand a hand away
  yet look upon each other
  as ghosts,
  as dust we love
  yet cannot see or reach.
  We looked at the stars come out,
  in bunches, in leaps and swirls,
  and I could say nothing,
  could move no nearer,
  no farther away.
  I left the next morning,
  afraid if I stayed
  they’d cry,
  cry and shatter
  to look at me,
  because I know thy feel
  it’s somehow their fault,
  that even this
  they should have been able
  to protect me from.
  If only I could convince them
  could say something
  which might work its way
  into their sleep
  their hearts,
  and soothe, and solace.
  But all I can think of
  is that you love as you have to
  and die the best you can.”
  
  — AIDS
  
  “I fell asleep in the rain.
  Its too many kisses
  washed my face away.
  I thought it a dream,
  but woke with little
  to offer mirrors.
  Now the sky
  is clear.
  However
  the forecast
  is for rain.
  These are my shoes,
  this is my shirt,
  this a list
  of my sins,
  my little pleasures.
  Remember them.
  Soon they’ll be
  what’s left of me.”
  
  — Forecast
  
• 
  Eóin Ó Fuartháin

  Through poems written like vignettes Hicok takes you along a journey of the darker sides of ourselves. His deftness with each poem makes them a captivating read. Enjoy.
• 
  Brian Wasserman

  Bob hicok strikes again, and to no benefit. More chunky paragraphs, more caprice.
• 
  Biscuits

  Beautiful. I admire Hicok's vocabulary along with the precise way he strings together life's instances. Good range of styles and tones.
  
  My Favorites:
  Weather
  Surgery
  Rearview Mirror
  AIDS
  Traffic Jam
  Nigger
  Your Daughter
  
  
  http://xforwardprogressx.blogspot.com...
• 
  Elizabeth

  After hearing Hicok read at AWP in Chicago, I wanted more. Deliberately complicated masculinity and wry humor. Tenderness. This book, his first I believe, has wonderful moments. However, I have to confess, I’m hoping that he improves as he continues to write (his other books are waiting on my shelf).
• 
  Kate Savage

  Astonishing poetry.
  
  I don't have any patience for a poem that is trying to be a philosophical treatise. Hicok never makes this mistake: he is fundamentally a story-teller. He lives in the world, with other people, not with other writers. It is a place that is urgent and vibrant.
• 
  Jessica

  wow! something absolutely beautiful came out of Michigan!
• 
  James

  I loved this book. The poems generally are about everyday life, and Hicok finds magical ways to transcend the ordinary, often with devastating affect. Highly recommended.
• 
  Mills College Library

  811.54 H6319 1995