text de Roxana Cioriia

L-am descoperit pe Bob Hicok prin 2005, cand, practic, am inceput sa descopar si internetul cu posibilitatile lui nenumarate. E unul dintre primii “mari” poeti contemporani de care m-am indragostit cu cea mai sincera si mai novice patima. “Animal Soul”, finalista la National Book Critics Circle Award, a fost prima si singura carte de poezie pe care am citit-o dintr-o respiratie, intr-o noapte, sub plapuma, cu toate nodurile posibile in gat si lacrimi atarnate de obraji. And I’m a prose girl, give me Russian novels sau hai si short stories (mai ales si mai ales Cortazar) si nu mai am nevoie de altceva. Imi place pentru ca scrie poezie riscanta, parca are arcuri sub versuri si-ti lasa impresia ca poate sa se foloseasca de orice pentru a da pinteni unei idei. Are si umor dar e si frighteningly insightful, tese tristete si rasete cu o claritate atat de personala ca n-ai cum sa nu te cutremuri.

Ca si atmosfera sau poetical aftertaste, in mintea mea e in aceeasi liga cu Dean Young sau Russell Edson sau James Tate sau Gertrude Stein. Poezia lui porneste de la curiozitati si momente autobiografice care-l ajuta sa-si intinda imaginatia la maxim, pentru ca, stie si el, intensitatea iesita din banal e cea mai pretioasa. E brutal de sincer si de o simplitatea a imagisticii vertiginoasa.

“I saw he was looking for a place/in his brain to hide/his brain”

“I can’t be in the avant-garde/because I cry when dogs die/in movies”

“That was the day I learned you can sit/with someone who’s on the bottom/of the ocean and not get wet”

“When I said/I have to lay you off/a parallel universe was born/in his face, one where flesh/is a loose shirt/taken to the river and beaten/against rocks”

“How to say yes like a river/jumping off a cliff”

“I think staying up and waiting for paintings to sigh is science”

“And in that city,
at night, a little girl
wants a goldfish for the goldfish
she already has, and the goldfish
wants a little girl for the little girl
he already has, and the bowl
wants a bowl beside it
to share the orange and rippling feeling
it would call soul if the word
wasn’t already taken.”

In 2013, Copper Canyon Press ii vor publica cea de-a saptea carte, “Elegy Owed”. Daca rascolesti bine pe net, gasesti cateva poeme “scapate”, cu care te poti hrani pana apare. De exemplu fragmentul asta:

“Excerpt of a longer recording”

“A man loves silence so much, to talk to him,
you sit alone in a room
and have your say, leave the room,
which he enters and listens
to your thoughts, replies
and leaves, you enter again
and listen to the memory
of air, reply
and leave. I’ve known him
my whole life and we’ve yet to finish
our first conversation. There’s time.”

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Roxana Cioriia este jurnalist, a scris pentru Cosmopolitan, iar acum este PR la DRAFTFCB.