<div><p><B>National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.</B></p><p><p><B>Paterson Award for Literary Excellence.</B></p><p>"What Hicok's getting at [in <I>Elegy Owed</I>] 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."?<I>Los Angeles Times</I></p><p>"[A] fluid, absorbing new collection. . . . Highly recommended."?<I>Library Journal</I>, starred review</p><p>When asked in an interview "What would Bob Hicok launch from a giant sling shot?" he answered "Bob Hicok." <I>Elegy Owed</I>?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."</p><p><B>From "Notes for a time capsule":</B></p><p><I>The twig in. I'll put the twig in I carry in my pocket<BR>and my pocket and my eye, my left eye. A cup<BR>of the Ganges and the bacteria from shit<BR>in the Ganges and the anyway ablutions of rainbow-<BR>robed Hindus in the Ganges. The dawnline of the mountain<BR>with contrail above like an accent in a language<BR>too large for my mouth. A mirror<BR>so whoever opens the past will see themselves<BR>in the past and fall back from their face<BR>speaking to them across centuries or hours<BR>or the nearnevers . . . </I></p><p><B>Bob Hicok</B>'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.</p><BR></div>