The Legend of Light (Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry)
"Memories often link umbiblically," Hicok says in "Memory," a poem that captures the unconsciousness of some remembered responses: his two childhood distastes ("siamese tortures") for the Road Runner and having to catch his father's "psychotic" knuckleball connect to ruminations about an innocent man's ineradicable memories of imprisonment after his release from jail. With unadorned directness, Hicok details quotidian events: he sees a mother strike her child in the car waiting next to his at an intersection, notes the woman's instantaneous regret which is expressed in a hug that holds that car in place long after the light changes and he drives on. Hicok's lines move quickly, depicting a vision that doesn't seem to miss a thing but is able to see surprising wholes made up of parts. This collection of accomplished, un-self-conscious work was selected for the 1995 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry by Carolyn Kizer.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.