Elegy Owed

National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.Paterson Award for Literary Excellence."e;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."e;Los Angeles Times"e;[A] fluid, absorbing new collection. . . . Highly recommended."e;Library Journal, starred reviewWhen asked in an interview "e;What would Bob Hicok launch from a giant sling shot?"e; he answered "e;Bob Hicok."e; Elegy OwedHicok's eighth bookis an existential game of Twister in which the rules of mourning are broken and salvaged, and "e;you can never step into the same not going home again twice."e;From "e;Notes for a time capsule"e;:The twig in. I'll put the twig in I carry in my pocketand my pocket and my eye, my left eye. A cupof the Ganges and the bacteria from shitin the Ganges and the anyway ablutions of rainbow-robed Hindus in the Ganges. The dawnline of the mountainwith contrail above like an accent in a languagetoo large for my mouth. A mirrorso whoever opens the past will see themselvesin the past and fall back from their facespeaking to them across centuries or hoursor 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.