Elegy Owed

National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

Paterson Award for Literary Excellence.

"What Hicok's getting at [in Elegy Owed] is both the necessity and the inadequacy of language, the very bluntness of which (talk about a paradox) makes it all the more essential that we engage with it as a precision instrument, a force of clarity, of (at times) awful grace."--Los Angeles Times

"[A] fluid, absorbing new collection. . . . Highly recommended."--Library Journal, starred review

When asked in an interview "What would Bob Hicok launch from a giant sling shot?" he answered "Bob Hicok." Elegy Owed--Hicok's eighth book--is an existential game of Twister in which the rules of mourning are broken and salvaged, and "you can never step into the same not going home again twice."

From "Notes for a time capsule"

The twig in. I'll put the twig in I carry in my pocket
and my pocket and my eye, my left eye. A cup
of the Ganges and the bacteria from shit
in the Ganges and the anyway ablutions of rainbow-
robed Hindus in the Ganges. The dawnline of the mountain
with contrail above like an accent in a language
too large for my mouth. A mirror
so whoever opens the past will see themselves
in the past and fall back from their face
speaking to them across centuries or hours
or the nearnevers . . .

Bob Hicok's worked as an automotive die designer and a computer system administrator before becoming an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech. He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.