Bob Hicok a finalist for Library of Virginia award
Acclaimed Virginia Tech poet Bob Hicok, an associate professor of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, is a finalist for the Library of Virginia’s 2014 Literary Awards.
Hicok was nominated for his latest work, “Elegy Owed,” published by Copper Canyon Press. His seventh collection of poetry, it was also a finalist for this year’s National Book Critics Circle Award.
The Washington Post wrote of the new volume, “This gorgeous collection spans the landscape of loss with unexpected leaps and ripples, as if someone has skipped stones across a lake.” In a starred review, Library Journal described the book as a “fluid, absorbing new collection. … Hicok gives readers unexpected conjunctions and oddly offbeat thoughts, most darkly whimsical, and has us embrace them wholeheartedly.”
Hicok’s work has appeared in a number of anthologies, including “The Best American Poetry,” and he has won a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt national award for poetry.
Hicok has given public readings of his poetry in a number of venues, including the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Earlier this month, he appeared on the public radio show “With Good Reason.”
A member of the Virginia Tech community since 2003, Hicok received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
The Library of Virginia’s 2014 award winners in three categories—fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—will be announced on Oct. 18 at the 17th Annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards Celebration Honoring Virginia Authors and Friends. The celebration is part of the week-long Virginia Literary Festival.
