Hold

In his ninth collection, Hicok (Sex & Love &) navigates a world bereft of empathy and kindness, leading by example with a charm and emotional intelligence that speaks to a deep insight into the human condition. Hicok identifies societal ills—including police brutality, renascent Nazism, and unfettered capitalism—without becoming mired in cynicism. To be alive, in Hicok’s esteem, is a blessing that should not be wasted: “why punch the world in the face/ when that’s a very big face.” Instead, he celebrates human possibility, intimacy, grace, and “the crinkle-crinkle/ of the candy wrapper of the soul.” In a hilarious send-up of American individualism titled “There’s no i in unity after the first i,” Hicok writes of Frank Sinatra’s hit, “ ‘My Way’ should only be sung underwater,/ so the narcissism is softened a bit/ by drowning.” In “For love of the game,” he imagines the Green Bay Packers huddling on the field to discuss Stephen Hawking and Susan Sontag in a comment on toxic masculinity and homoeroticism in sports. In more personal poems, Hicok contends with the specter of death, both his own and the difficulty of watching one’s parents age and prepare for their own ends. Mixing cleverness with tenderness, Hicok demonstrates how to be a beacon of light in the darkest of settings. (Oct.)