Bob Hicok (born 1960 Grand Ledge, Michigan) is an American poet.[1]

Bob Hicok
Born1960 (age 63–64)
Grand Ledge, Michigan, U.S.
OccupationPoet
EducationVermont College of Fine Arts (MFA)
Notable awardsBobbitt National Prize for Poetry (2008)

Life

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Hicok is a professor of creative writing at Virginia Tech, where he has taught since 2003 with the exception of the 2015-2016 academic year when he taught at Purdue as a full-time Associate Professor.[2][3][4] He subsequently returned to Virginia Tech where he was promoted to full professor. He is from Michigan and before teaching owned and ran a successful automotive die design business.[5] He formerly taught at Western Michigan University.[6]

His first book, The Legend of Light, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press and chosen as an American Library Association Booklist Notable Book of the Year. Plus Shipping followed in 1998. His 2001 Animal Soul was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.[7] He has since published five more books, Insomnia Diary (2004) This Clumsy Living (2007) Words for Empty and Words for Full (2010) with University of Pittsburgh Press, Elegy Owed (2013)[8] and Sex & Love & (2016)[9] with Copper Canyon Press. His most recent book, Hold, was published in 2018 by Copper Canyon Press.[10] In 2004, after publishing four collections of poetry, Hicok (who previously had no undergraduate or graduate degree) earned an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.[11]

His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review and The American Poetry Review, as well as in eight volumes of The Best American Poetry and six times in the Pushcart Prize anthology.

Awards

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Bibliography

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Collections

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  • Bearing witness. Detroit: Ridgeway Press. 1991.
  • The Legend of Light (University of Wisconsin Press, 1995)
  • Plus Shipping (BOA Editions, Ltd., 1998)
  • Animal Soul (Invisible Cities Press, 2003)
  • Insomnia Diary (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004)
  • This Clumsy Living (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007)
  • Words for Empty and Words for Full (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010)
  • Elegy owed. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press. 2013.
  • Sex & Love & (Copper Canyon Press, 2016)
  • Hold (Copper Canyon Press, 2018)
  • Water Look Away (Copper Canyon Press, 2023)

Anthologies

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List of poems

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Title Year First published Reprinted/collected
Blue prints 2013 Hicok, Bob (Mar–Apr 2013). "Blue prints". The Believer. 11 (3): 49. Elegy owed
Origin story 2017 Hicok, Bob (August 21, 2017). "Origin story". The New Yorker. 93 (24): 46–47.
Man of the house ? ? Walsh, William, ed. (2006). Under the rock umbrella : contemporary American poets, 1951-1977. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. p. 163.
The new math ? ? Walsh, William, ed. (2006). Under the rock umbrella : contemporary American poets, 1951-1977. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. pp. 163–164.
Peoria ? ? Walsh, William, ed. (2006). Under the rock umbrella : contemporary American poets, 1951-1977. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. pp. 165–165.
Remedy 2021 Hicok, Bob (September 20, 2021). "Remedy". The New Yorker. 97 (29): 38.
ROTC ? ? Walsh, William, ed. (2006). Under the rock umbrella : contemporary American poets, 1951-1977. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. pp. 165–166.

Notes

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