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Finding The Gossamer
Poems by PATRICK HICKS

| Paperback | 127 x 203 mm | 80 pages | ISBN 978-1-903392-83-9 | June 2008

In several versions of ancient mythology, the spider is the creator of the universe, a weaver of reality, a goddess that has built an intricate web to support the story of life. In this collection, Patrick Hicks explores how we are born into history, how we spin our stories and struggle against failure, and also how throwaway moments can shimmer with unexpected beauty. Our lives and the lives of the dead are threaded together, they form an intricate pattern of love, loss, ancestry, and home. By teasing out these delicate intersections, Hicks explores how we are connected to the world around us.

Patrick Hicks is a dual citizen of Ireland and the United States, as well as Writer-in-Residence at Augustana College. His work has appeared in scores of international publications including, Ploughshares, The Utne Reader, Commonweal, The National Catholic Reporter, Cimarron Review, Nimrod, and many others. He is the author of Travelling Through History (2005), Draglines (2006), and The Kiss that Saved My Life (2007). Several poems from Finding The Gossamer have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Aside from being a Visiting Fellow at Oxford and winning a variety of grants to support his work, he has lived in Northern Ireland, England, Germany, and Spain. He currently lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he enjoys thunderstorms rolling across the prairie.
 
Sample Poem

Travelling Through a Weightless Battlefield

Germany slides beneath the cocked wing
of our plane and from this height
of sixty years, I am reminded of
the venom that boiled below.
Ghostly bombers flank our 747 and,
as my fellow passengers sip their wine
and adjust their headsets, I hear
the propellers of the past, I watch
the bomb-doors crank open to expose
iron tumours that fall like peppercorn seeds.
Savage flowers burst up from the land,
black flak cracks at planes,
airmen fall like fleas through the gelid sky,
their silk parachutes bubble with fire.

In this airspace, moving through
forgotten battlefields, my dinner arrives
on a narrow plastic plate.
I reach for my red wine,
a child whimpers with boredom, and
as the in-flight movie begins,
the shades are drawn down.

Outside, our engines rumble on.
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About this Book
Sample Poem