Insomnia Diary (Pitt Poetry Series)

Hicok's style remains deceptive: seemingly random and surreal, but often steering into the poignant or sad. The rambling is contained by a naturalistic style that can veer surreal in imaginary but is never pretentious. Some of the strongest lines here will knock your socks off, but the poems do seem to wander even after the lyrical punch is achieved.

Especially in this dystopian time, we need poetry. And this guy is one of our best. Relatable poems that hold whole worlds in a few lines. So moving.

This is fantastic poetry with vivid imaginative phrases like "hoping penicillin still cures a vacation" and "pepper spray is how they [cops] argue economic theory." It's all creative. It's all good.

In Bob Hicok's fourth book, Insomnia Diary, Hicok takes the reader on a risque journey through the darker side of life as seen by the eyes of the narrator. While some of Hicok's poems speak simply of love and life's basic needs, other poems have a distinctively sexual undertone that some people might shy away from. All of this is foreshadowed through the choice of the painting used as the cover art: Luis Cruz Azaceta's "Time-Man" in which the central figure is nude and has his head severed from the rest of his body. The dark range of browns, blues, reds, and black in the painting add to a reader's overall impression that the poetry hidden between the covers will have a dark edge. A dark edge that Hicok does not fail to deliver.In Insomnia Diary Hicok gives a reader tales of love toward another ("My life with a gardener"), sexual fantasies ("Another awkward stage of convalescence"), social criticisms ("Growing at the speed of fashion"), and even tales of being forced to lay off others in the work force ("Dropping the euphemism"). All these snapshots of life are wrapped neatly and hidden behind the "Time-Man" who practically begs the reader to open the book and see what tales the covers hold. Dark threads and themes run throughout Hicok's work, but beauty exists as well in Hicok's written words. Insomnia Diary is well worth a reader's time. Hicok's poems make a reader think, and those are the poems that will last.

The book arrived in excellent condition within the scheduled delivery time.Thank you,Francine Keehnel