The Legend of Light (Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry)

Hicoks poems have a kind of severity, a moral accuracy, that both chills and refreshes the spirit, along with a technical virtuosity intrinsic to the work. He writes of the mundane with a brio that speaks to the meaning of metaphysical: beyond the physical, into the realms of light.Carolyn Kizer, Pollak Prize Citation The Legend of Light is a vivid, quirky, and deeply human book.Thomas Lux Bob Hicoks poems go out looking for whats least, but they also keep their eye, in these failing days of our century, on the large view, The term used / is megalopolis. This vast expanse is his terrain, and the subject he ably studies there isus, it turns out; or what he calls the hearts jazz. He listens to that music most industriously.Albert Goldbarth Whether Hicok is considering the reflection of human faces in the Vietnam War Memorial or the elements of a Modern Prototype factory, he prompts an icy realization that we may have never seen the world as it truly is. But his resilient voice and consistent perspective is neither blaming nor didactic, and ultimately enlightening. From the shadowed corners into which we dare not look clearly, Hicok makes us witness and hero of The Legend of Light.