Bob Hicok, "Mortal Shower"

Bob Hicok is a little young to be writing a poem like "Mortal Shower," but a lot people over age 40 have worried out loud about aging, at least to friends. Some of us can even laugh at ourselves on the subject, at least some of the time.

But how many can turn sagging into a love poem? How many of us can make thoughts zig and zag like a Grand Prix race car zooming around curves, but ending safely at a finish line, or purring comfortably in the garage.

I don't know if this is one of Hicok's best or most important poems, but it's easy to underestimate the power of humor.

Mortal shower by Bob Hicok : The Poetry Foundation [poem] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.

Another Parenting Poem: "Mutterings over the Crib of a Deaf Child" by James Wright

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor | Mutterings over the Crib of a Deaf Child by James Wright

I've been disappointed in the less than voluminous response to Hicok's "O my pa-pa" two days ago. Is today's James Wright poem more pleasing? A more reasonable argument?

I've never felt sure who the two speakers are. Father and mother seem the most likely identities, but there are a couple of spots where that seems off the point.

Do "Mutterings" and Hicok's "O my pa-pa" have anything in common with each other, or with Grace Paley's "Walking in the Woods"?

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor | Mutterings over the Crib of a Deaf Child by James Wright

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Father Poem: Bob Hicok's "O my pa-pa"

O my pa-pa by Bob Hicok : Poetry Magazine [poem/magazine] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.

Like Maurice Manning (Banjo52, Nov. 15), Bob Hicok is a relatively young poet who takes chances that would fail in lesser hands. There's a bit of wiseacre in his language and content--a tone that keeps many irony-loving poets too detached to trust. Brain castrates heart. I suspect that these poets are apparently so worried about sentimentality that they overcompensate and eviscerate their poems. Overly academic poets can do the same thing, yet I wouldn't be surprised if those two schools of poetry feel contempt for each other.

But Bob Hicok is not an excessively self-defended irony-robot. He keeps on being human and soulful, even as he relies on wit and irony in everything from subject matter to word choice to decisions about line breaks. Of the Hicok poems I've read, "O my pa-pa" is his greatest achievement, and it is simply a fine poem in any context.

You may have heard about writers' conferences or the writing workshop scene. The teacher, who is usually a writer-dignitary (with real or imagined celebrity),  guides less experienced writers as they sit in a circle and critique each other's work.

Naturally, the bad mom and the bad dad are frequent subjects. And why not? There is no shortage of bad moms and bad dads. However, beginning writers don't seem to realize that they need to bring something new to the table--a new kind of bad mom or bad dad, or at least a fresh perspective and invigorated language on a well-worn subject.

And now there's Hicok's strategy: why not turn the tables entirely? What if there were a workshop of dads writing about bad sons, or just disappointing sons, indifferent sons, self-centered sons, sons who broke their fathers' hearts, sons who maybe deserve to have critical poems written about them, even if the poems are bad. Bad dad, bad son, bad poem. Dumb males, distant males, longing males . . . . Writing Workshop, anyone?

O my pa-pa by Bob Hicok : Poetry Magazine [poem/magazine] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.

ABOUT BOOKS

Above: Rocky the Reader

Here are the numbers of Blogspot bloggers, including me, who include these works or authors as their favorites.

The Great Gatsby 358,000
King Lear 7,700
Raymond Carver’s stories 5,700
Tobias Wolff’s stories 265 (or does that include his book-length work as well?)
Alice Munro’s stories 4

These numbers have a kind of logic, except for one item: why so few for Munro? At least in Canada, she’s become well-known and highly awarded in the last decade or two.

I suspect the problem is that her stories aren’t page-turners in the usual sense of the word. But if you want multidimensional, thoroughly developed characters, who find themselves in intriguing, troubling, believable situations in remote small towns or country settings, she is your writer.

My favorite Munro stories tend to be set somewhere in the past (1950s backward to the nineteenth century) in the villages or wilderness of Ontario. Munro makes me care deeply about people and places that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with me. The only exceptions for me are occasional tilts toward soap opera in a few of the stories with modern settings.

If you’ll allow yourself to slow down to Munro’s dignified, but never turgid style, you’ll learn about distant places and their humans; I have found page-by-page satisfactions and surprises (including beauties of phrasing and leaps in plot or characterization).

Try “Meneseteung,” “Carried Away,” “Wilderness Station” and “Vandals”—all four of which are placed toward the end of her Selected Stories 1996).

I’d also be interested in your responses to the stories of Aimee Bender and two poets I’m getting know somewhat, though they seem to inhabit different universes: Bob Hicok and Karen Volkman.

I almost added to my favorites Edward P. Jones’s magnificent The Known World, but I’ve only read it once, and, in case there's a quiz, I decided to include only works I’ve known really well at one time or another.