Words for Empty and Words for Full

My sister’s out of work and my brother’s
out of work and my other brother’s
out of work, these are facts available
over the phone or in person, just as now,
three clouds travel north, one
above another, smallish, amoeba shaped,
and the bottom cloud just died,
and the top two have joined forces
and left me to fend for myself
under a new sky.


“As always with a Bob Hicok book, fascinating and a book you sort of can’t help but pick up and suddenly, two hours later, find yourself having read straight through. I can think of just about no contemporary poets who publish such consistently great work.”—Corduroy Books

Bob Hicok teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, and his poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including Poetry, Paris Review, and the New Yorker. He is the author of The Legend of Light, which won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry, and Animal Soul, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.

Works

• Go Greyhound A poem by Bob Hicok
• Words For Empty And Words For Full, 2010 University of Pittsburgh Press;
• This Clumsy Living, 2007, the University of Pittsburgh Press;
• Insomnia Diary, 2004, the University of Pittsburgh Press;
• Animal Soul, 2003, Invisible Cities Press;
• Plus Shipping, 1998, BOA Editions, Ltd.; and
• The Legend of Light, 1995 University of Wisconsin Press.
• Bearing Witness, 1991 Ridgeway Press