Reviews

This Clumsy Living by Bob Hicok

seapeanut's review against another edition

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This Clumsy Living (Pitt Poetry Series) by Bob Hicok (2007)

molly_benevides's review against another edition

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2.0

This was more surreal than I expected it to be. It probably deserves more stars, but I wasn't really in the mood for... ambiguity? poetic license? dreams? Postmodernisms? Anyhow, if that's your thing, you'll love these poems.

jenx's review against another edition

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5.0

Another one of my extensive reviews: this book is amazing. That is all.

rileaf's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

mugren's review against another edition

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3.0

I really liked some of the images, which tended to be odd yet still worked.

davidpcox's review against another edition

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5.0

This book is phenomenal. The way Hicok creates images is so sublime and layered. His work is just so rich with nuance and depth. Often he'll create a stream of ideas or images and have single lines that encapsulate a concept just by themselves before moving on to the next metaphor. I feel inspired but could never make art like this. It's rare to find a collection of works where so much of it is engaging and truly something. Shortly into starting this book I knew I needed to finish it. Now I fully recommend everyone with an interest in poetry to devour it also.

thereadinghobbit's review

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3.0

I find it very difficult to rate and review this poetry book. Mostly because I don't have much experience with modern poetry and have not much to compare it with, but also because Hicok's poems are so surreal and metaphysical it's hard to grasp their meaning, or feeling. Some poems felt like a drag, too long, too full of symbols I didn't understand (and seemed to be only understandable to the author), too feverish, but some did touch me. They seemed to stir something in me that I can't quite describe, something I feel poetry should do to you. They speak of sadness, and overthinking, and just being overwhelmed by the fullness of life, by just, well, all of it. That feeling that there's just so much, so often, and everything deserves consideration. But then again, that may be something only I recognize in it, because it's something I relate to. If you don't like surreal poetry, do not attempt this book, it will only frustrate you, but if it doesn't bother you, please try. It has some very good lines.

jenniferaimee's review

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3.0

I liked most of the poems in this a lot and Hicok's language is unbeatable in every one of them. I do prefer Words for Empty and Words for Full as a whole, but this was still a wonderful collection.

danmc's review

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2.0

My first encounter with Hicok's work was "Alzheimer's" in Billy Collins' 180 poems. I thought it was a terribly poignant image of a man trying to help his mother as she loses her mind.

Alzheimer’s

Chairs move by themselves, and books.
Grandchildren visit, stand new and nameless,
their faces’ puzzles missing pieces.

She’s like a fish in a deep ocean,
its body made of light.
She floats through rooms,
through my eyes,
an old woman bereft of chronicle,
the parable of her life.

And though she’s almost a child
there’s still blood between us;
I passed through her to arrive.
So I protect her from knives, stairs,
from the street that calls as rivers do,
a summons to walk away, to follow.

And dress her,
demonstrate how buttons work,
when she sometimes looks up
and says my name,
the sound arriving like the trill of a bird
so rare it’s rumored no longer to exist.

I was so moved, I was moved to Powell's to buy this book. But nothing in This Clumsy Living struck me with that same honest heartfulness as that first poem. I found a few poems memorable, like "In Michael Robins's class minus one" and "Failures in meditation" and "Beasts". But overall the most powerful words were washed out in a stream of self-conscious college-professor wordplay: "A poem with a poem in its belly", "Waiting for my foot to ring", "The personal touch", as well as the four poems in a row that began "My" and were (taken together) more self-absorbed than wryly self-deprecating.

Ultimately, I felt as though Hicok had spent too much time in a college context, so that his potential and heart was either smothered or channeled into meaningless experimentation with form.

mattie's review

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4.0

Bob Hicok is one of my favorite poets and I was so excited to get my hands on this when it came out last month. Bob Hicok is fantastic. There's something really blunt and real in his poems. Publisher's Weekly compares him to Billy Collins, but I think he's a lot more like Jeffrey McDaniel, although he takes it a step further than either of them (maybe quite a few steps further than Collins -- sorry, Billy). Um, I want to say tons of smart stuff about it, but I can't, it's just great. The poems I keep rereading from it: "My faith-based initiative," "A theory of art as respiration," "My career as a director," "A letter: the Genesis poem," "Her my body".
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