Interesting article from ther Roanoke Times here on Bob Hicok's poem from APR--
The latest issue of the American Poetry Review includes a poem by Virginia Tech English professor Bob Hicok entitled "So I Know."
The poem -- one of five Hicok wrote for the issue -- is an unflinching and pained look at Hicok's thoughts about shooter Seung-Hui Cho and the professor's feelings of guilt for not doing something to stop his former student.
Part of the poem reads:
"I don't know what I could have done
something. Something more than talk to someone
who talked to someone, a food chain of language
leading to this language of 'no words' we have now.
Maybe we exist as language and when someone dies
they are unworded. Maybe I should have shot the kid
and then myself given the math. 2 < 33."
While a student in Hicok's class in spring 2006, Cho wrote a play about a student who plans a mass school shooting.
Reports say that Hicok was one of several professors in the department to voice concerns about Cho and he took those concerns to department head Lucinda Roy. But Cho was not removed from his class.
Hicok did not return a call Monday to speak about his poem. In the poem he discusses the media attention that has followed him since the shootings and acknowledges that people may feel it's too soon to write a poem about the shootings.
# # # # #
Here's the full poem from APR--
Bob Hicok
So I know
He put moisturizer on the morning he shot
thirty-three people. That stands out. The desire
to be soft. I could tell the guy from NPR
that's what I want, to be soft, or the guy
from the LA Times, or the guy from CNN who says
we should chat. Such a casual word, chat.
I'm chatting to myself now: you did not
do enough about the kid who took your class
a few buildings from where he killed.
With soft hands in Norris Hall killed.
This is my confession. And legs I think
the roommate said, moisturizer in the shower,
I don't know what I could have done
something. Something more than talk to someone
who talked to someone, a food chain of language
leading to this language of "no words" we have now.
Maybe we exist as language and when someone dies
they are unworded. Maybe I should have shot the kid
and then myself given the math. 2 < 33.
I was good at math. Numbers are polite, carefree
if you ask the random number generators.
Mom, I don't mean the killing above.
It's something I write like "I put my arms
around the moon." Maybe sorry's the only sound
to offer pointlessly and at random
to each other forever, not because of what it means
but because it means we're trying to mean,
I am trying to mean more than I did
when I started writing this poem, too soon
people will say, so what. This is what I do.
If I don't do this I have no face and if I do this
I have an apple for a face or something vital
almost going forward is the direction I am headed.
Come with me from being over here to being over there,
from this second to that second. What countries
they are, the seconds, what rooms of people
being alive in them and then dead in them.
The clocks of flowers rise, it's April
and yellow and these seconds are an autopsy
of this word,
suddenly.
Bob Hicok
* * * * *
You know, mostly I feel bad for college professors and teachers because they are teachers, not social workers or psychotrists trained in knowing who is a "young angry male" and who desperately needs help. I could never blame any of them for not knowing that a student in their class was about to be a murderer.
They are not mind-readers. They do not know if a story turned in is based on fiction, a young Stephen King in the class, or some sort of forewarning from a disturbed individual.
Who do I blame? The man with the gun. I hold him responsible.
I think our college campuses and communities should have better health care available to all--physical and mental health. I think college campuses should have better emergency responses to contact their students, say text-messages to their cellphones that say "stay off campus (or in your dorms) until further notice." I think universities should make sure that people who need help get help and are followed up on. But do I think it is the responsibility of professors not only to teach the class, but be aware of the mental health status of all 60-600 students in their classes? No.
How can you ever know who is going to snap and who is just having a bad semester, a bad life? It's like trying to locate worm on the inside of an apple, sometimes you can see the small hole on the side very clearly, other times you just don't know until someone takes a bite.
Showing posts with label Bob Hicok. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Hicok. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
New Bob Hicok Interview
I found this article/interview with Bob Hicok today. I just purchased his new book, but haven't read it yet. It's still in my purse.
I've only see him once. It was at the AWP and I heard him read and yes, that was the time I got tongued asking him to sign my book, then ran out of the room after saying Thank you. I'm always amazed with poets who can talk with other poets they admire. I find when I really like a someone, I say four words--usually, "I liked your book." As a poet, sometimes, I'm not so good with words in person.
It seems he'll be reading in Fresno soon, so if you're in the area, stop by.
COINCIDENCE AND CLARITY
Bob Hicok will visit the Fresno Poets' Association for a reading.
by James Tyner
February 27, 2007
For most poets and writers, there is always that piece of work that is "it" for you. It's that one essay or poem you read that inspires you and makes you think, "yes, that's what I want to do."
For me, that was what happened when I read the poem What Would Freud Say, by Bob Hicok.
It was a few months into my first poetry class, and I had decided to pick up some poetry journals, poring through everything I could get my hands on. There was something to the voice of the speaker in that poem, the use of image and story that drew me right in. I have been a fan ever since, and Hicok's poems have always been a guideline for me.
Hicok, who was a die maker for many years while writing poetry along the way, will be reading this Thursday evening for the fifth installment of the Fresno Poets' Association season at the Fresno Art Museum. The reading begins at 7:30 p.m.
Hicok, who currently teaches at Virginia Tech, has written several books of poetry, including The Legend of Light, Animal Soul, Plus Shipping, and Insomnia Diary. The self-taught poet has won the National Education Association Fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes. His work has appeared in such places as The New Yorker, the American Poetry Review, Poetry magazine, and Ploughshares.
To start, who are the writers that inspired you?
Humpty Dumpty. Before the great fall. It changes. Right now, I like Beckian Fritz Goldberg's poetry quite a bit. Intensely lyrical, a little strange. Neruda, too, of late. George Oppen.
How did you get into writing poetry? How long have you been doing it?
I started writing when I was twenty. My girlfriend broke up with me, so I was sad and said so to a notebook, which became a sad, blue notebook. So, twenty seven years and only one sad, blue notebook.
What is the writing process like for you? Do you rewrite often?
I sit at a computer in the morning with coffee and a bagel, my hands, when done with the bagel, on either side of the keyboard and a window in front of me and mountains in front of the window. An idea shows up. If I like it, I start writing. If I don’t like it, I tell it to go away. This goes on for several hours.
Some poems I rewrite quite a few times and some poems not at all.
Is there a big difference between "academic" and other types of poetry, in your opinion?
There can be, sure. Though so many poets have moved into the university that the nature of academic poetry has itself been changed. The elbow-patch wearing, pipe smoking cliche doesn't have much use anymore, except to lampoon.
There's good and bad everywhere. I wish we weren't so sold on the idea that poets belong on campuses. That's where the money is, so bodies will flow to the money, but the campus is not an essential Petri dish.
Do you feel that your writing has changed over the years? In what way? Has it changed after becoming a teacher?
Yes. It has become stranger, less narrative. I don't think teaching has changed my work, though my poems have changed while I teach. A coincidental, not causal relationship.
Do you feel your students influence you as well as you them?
Yes. Not sure how.
What topics do you find yourself writing about most recently?
Most recently would be this morning, so disorder, order and french fires. Fires, not fries.
How does form affect your poetry?
My avoidance of fixed forms gives me great pleasure.
What advice do you have for beginning poets?
Write.
Do you feel that poetry is currently changing?
Poets are always changing their socks, so poetry is always changing its socks.
For more details on Hicok's reading, visit FresnoPoets.org.
I've only see him once. It was at the AWP and I heard him read and yes, that was the time I got tongued asking him to sign my book, then ran out of the room after saying Thank you. I'm always amazed with poets who can talk with other poets they admire. I find when I really like a someone, I say four words--usually, "I liked your book." As a poet, sometimes, I'm not so good with words in person.
It seems he'll be reading in Fresno soon, so if you're in the area, stop by.
COINCIDENCE AND CLARITY
Bob Hicok will visit the Fresno Poets' Association for a reading.
by James Tyner
February 27, 2007
For most poets and writers, there is always that piece of work that is "it" for you. It's that one essay or poem you read that inspires you and makes you think, "yes, that's what I want to do."
For me, that was what happened when I read the poem What Would Freud Say, by Bob Hicok.
It was a few months into my first poetry class, and I had decided to pick up some poetry journals, poring through everything I could get my hands on. There was something to the voice of the speaker in that poem, the use of image and story that drew me right in. I have been a fan ever since, and Hicok's poems have always been a guideline for me.
Hicok, who was a die maker for many years while writing poetry along the way, will be reading this Thursday evening for the fifth installment of the Fresno Poets' Association season at the Fresno Art Museum. The reading begins at 7:30 p.m.
Hicok, who currently teaches at Virginia Tech, has written several books of poetry, including The Legend of Light, Animal Soul, Plus Shipping, and Insomnia Diary. The self-taught poet has won the National Education Association Fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes. His work has appeared in such places as The New Yorker, the American Poetry Review, Poetry magazine, and Ploughshares.
To start, who are the writers that inspired you?
Humpty Dumpty. Before the great fall. It changes. Right now, I like Beckian Fritz Goldberg's poetry quite a bit. Intensely lyrical, a little strange. Neruda, too, of late. George Oppen.
How did you get into writing poetry? How long have you been doing it?
I started writing when I was twenty. My girlfriend broke up with me, so I was sad and said so to a notebook, which became a sad, blue notebook. So, twenty seven years and only one sad, blue notebook.
What is the writing process like for you? Do you rewrite often?
I sit at a computer in the morning with coffee and a bagel, my hands, when done with the bagel, on either side of the keyboard and a window in front of me and mountains in front of the window. An idea shows up. If I like it, I start writing. If I don’t like it, I tell it to go away. This goes on for several hours.
Some poems I rewrite quite a few times and some poems not at all.
Is there a big difference between "academic" and other types of poetry, in your opinion?
There can be, sure. Though so many poets have moved into the university that the nature of academic poetry has itself been changed. The elbow-patch wearing, pipe smoking cliche doesn't have much use anymore, except to lampoon.
There's good and bad everywhere. I wish we weren't so sold on the idea that poets belong on campuses. That's where the money is, so bodies will flow to the money, but the campus is not an essential Petri dish.
Do you feel that your writing has changed over the years? In what way? Has it changed after becoming a teacher?
Yes. It has become stranger, less narrative. I don't think teaching has changed my work, though my poems have changed while I teach. A coincidental, not causal relationship.
Do you feel your students influence you as well as you them?
Yes. Not sure how.
What topics do you find yourself writing about most recently?
Most recently would be this morning, so disorder, order and french fires. Fires, not fries.
How does form affect your poetry?
My avoidance of fixed forms gives me great pleasure.
What advice do you have for beginning poets?
Write.
Do you feel that poetry is currently changing?
Poets are always changing their socks, so poetry is always changing its socks.
For more details on Hicok's reading, visit FresnoPoets.org.
