Civilization, as I understand it
To pee or not to pee
sitting or standing is never a question, sitting
whenever possible on a toilet
in the Pantheon a floor above
Marie Curie's body still alive
with the radium she endured
without knowing the harm her brilliance
was doing to her, then a baguette
and over to the Luxembourg to dream
of being home where I'd dream
of being there, our minds are water, you see,
touching the sun whenever we please
and the moon and Kahlo's paintings
despite what the do-see-docents say,
then on to London or Cairo or Boise
I hear has toilets as well, how civilized
the world can be in the spaces
we protect from our cruelty and greed,
such as the Pantheon with its oculus
suggesting the sky keeps an eye on us
at all times, indoors or out,
while juggling or writing a constitution,
praying to god or walking a dog
who pees with such sophistication
that another dog can come along
and sniff the story of her stream,
tell friend from foe, wag from woe,
and as science knows, dogs
are the only animals generally happier
when they're with us, including us
-Bob Hicok
Bob Hicok's eleventh collection of poetry, Water Look Away, will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2023. He has received nine Pushcart Prizes, a Guggenheim and two NEA Fellowships, and his poetry has been selected for inclusion in nine volumes of the Best American Poetry.
The New York School Diaspora (Part Forty-One): Bob Hicok
“Civilization, as I understand it,” Bob Hicok’s inspired, inward and outward facing soliloquy, takes form from a Paris walk and raises—like all good poems—more questions than answers. Its opening, a parodic riff on Shakespeare, reminds us that peeing and bathrooms are basic to civilization—did not the Romans think so? We talk of the house of memory, but the smallest, most memorable square footage of every house, of every restaurant or public building, is its lavatory. Our heads are full of them.
This poem enacts how civilization is built from incongruity, happenstance, and physical need. Why should we be able to pee “above” Marie Curie? Because her brilliance is “still alive” along with the radium that killed her. Instead of discussing where he stands on this or that, Hicok shows us his position. It’s in Paris, where “the Pantheon with its oculus” suggests “the sky keeps an eye on us / at all times, indoors or out,/ while juggling or writing a constitution, / praying to god or walking a dog.”
What is humor but something that changes suddenly, becomes more interesting, scary, or overwhelming? Hicok’s oculus that “keeps an eye on us”—might be reassuring, as in tragedy’s notion that human life matters, but here is comically unnerving. Undiscriminating, the eye presides over the most disparate of activities, “juggling or writing a constitution,” and our minds’ fantastic ability to touch “the sun whenever we please / and the moon and Kahlo’s paintings / despite what the do-see-docents say”—as here another fabulous pun plunges us to the depths and origins of humor.
As the foundational figures of the New York School knew, incongruity is inextricably mixed with who we are and have been. Hicok’s wanderings take him from the Pantheon to the Luxembourg, from death to garden via baguette, “to dream / of being home where I’d dream / of being there, our minds are water, you see. . . .” This may remind us of Thales’s statement, “Everything is made of water,” from a time when philosophers liked to posit universal origins for nature and civilization. If this poem made such a statement, which it doesn’t, it might be “Everything is made of incongruity”—as at its center, the poem renders “our cruelty and greed” both nearly ubiquitous and decidedly incongruous.
As E.M. Forster knew when he said, “Only connect,” connections join things while emphasizing their difference. This difference comes wonderfully into play in “Civilization, as I understand it,” when “praying to God” becomes “walking a dog,” and dog civilization is revealed as peeing “with such sophistication / that another dog can come along / and sniff the story of her stream, / tell friend from foe, wag from woe,”
and as science knows, dogs
are the only animals generally happier
when they're with us, including us
The poem’s final truth, stated in Groucho Marxian convolution, brings us to rest in happiness—the happiness of a truth both small and large, that both proceeds and diverges from where we have been: the paradoxical pleasure of recognizing that life is both simple and ineluctable, after all.
-Angela Ball
Charming, funny, Marixst in the Groucho sense, and New York all over even in a car's body.
Posted by: Molly Arden | January 03, 2023 at 05:24 PM
Thank you for this lively comment, Molly Arden!
Posted by: Angela Ball | January 03, 2023 at 07:10 PM
Bob Hicock is an important and undervalued poet.
Posted by: Ralph Nightingale | January 04, 2023 at 12:12 PM
My head IS full of all the bathrooms! And the fancier the place, the more interested I am in seeing the bathroom. The bathroom might be the only site of real connection or exchange in a place like a museum...our highest ideals meet our most basic needs. We come for the God, but we stay for the dog. I love this reading and this poem. What a perfect way to start the new year. Thank you for sharing your irresistible thoughts on this wonderful Hicok poem.
Posted by: Lindsay Doukopoulos | January 04, 2023 at 02:05 PM