Sex & Love &

"The most potent ingredient in virtually every one of Bob Hicok's compact, well-turned poems is a laughter as old as humanity itself."--The New York Times Book Review

"Hicok's poems are like boomerangs; they jut out in wild, associative directions, yet find their way back to the root of the matter, often in sincere and heartbreaking ways."--Publishers Weekly

In Sex & Love &, Bob Hicok attempts the impossible task of confronting love and its consequences, in which "everything is allowed, minus forever." Switching gracefully between witty confessions and blunt confrontations, Hicok muses on age, distance, secret messages, and, of course, sex. Throughout, poetry is discovered to be among our most effective tools to examine the delirium of making contact.

"Hot":

The sexiest thing a woman has ever done

to or with or for me--while wearing the loose breeze

of a dress or standing inside its red zero on the floor--

while bending over and pulling her shorts down

on a racquetball court or to reach the water

shutoff valve behind the fridge--as Satie

whispers against our thighs or humming

her brain's native tune as we touch

the smudged glass protecting extinct beetles

in a museum--with her lips swaddling my tongue

or finger up my ass--is tell the truth--

which makes my wife the hottest woman

I've ever known--her mouth erotic every time

she speaks--she is an animal when it comes to sex

and love--comes to us--in that she doesn't primp

in front of the mirror of what she thinks I want

her to say or be--the only real flesh--only naked

that matters--how she looks at me

Bob Hicok's poems have appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry, and the American Poetry Review. His books have been awarded the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress and named a "Notable Book of the Year" by Booklist. Hicok has worked as an automotive die designer and a computer system administrator. He is currently teaching at Purdue University.