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Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained | |||
Bob Hicok’s "Stop-Loss" is a meditation on the concept of loss, both personal and political, filtered through the lens of a father’s fleeting moment with his daughter juxtaposed against the reality of war. The title refers to the military policy of retaining soldiers beyond their expected terms of service, effectively forcing them into prolonged combat even when they have completed their contractual obligations. By using this term in a broader existential and emotional sense, Hicok expands its implications to encompass not just war but also mortality, memory, and the struggle against inevitability. The poem begins in a tone that mimics casual agreement: "Absolutely, I agree. It’s what we all / want to do." The vague pronoun “it” is left intentionally ambiguous, drawing the reader in before revealing what exactly we want to stop—loss itself. The speaker immediately clarifies, distinguishing this impulse from Thanatos, the Freudian concept of the death drive. By rejecting Thanatos, the poem asserts that the desire here is not for destruction but for preservation, for holding onto life, even as the forces of war, time, and mortality erode it. Hicok then zooms in on a small, intimate moment: "I mean you / holding your daughter’s hand, / thinking darkly, despite yourself, / to when you’re dead and she’s old / and alone." The act of holding a child’s hand—a moment of protection and presence—is undermined by the intrusive awareness of impermanence. Even in this simple act of love, the mind drifts to loss, to a future where the father is absent, and the daughter is left alone. This is the first kind of stop-loss the poem addresses—the desire to suspend time, to keep loved ones from ever feeling the weight of grief. The phrase “That’s a loss you want / to stop” is key. It implies that loss itself is not just an event but a process, something creeping, anticipated, and feared. The next lines shift the focus from death to optimism, to the very ability to remain present: "the present tense, / of just being with her as you wait / for the bus, watching her watch a blackbird / that doesn’t have to go to school." The contrast between the child's world and the father’s—between the carefree blackbird and the daughter’s obligation to education—heightens the idea that innocence and obligation coexist uneasily. The father struggles to stay in "the present tense", to be in the moment rather than succumbing to the gravity of future loss. Then the poem expands outward, introducing a soldier waiting for the same bus: "The man beside you in fatigues, camouflaged / from Wednesday, holding his son’s hand / for the last time before he returns / to shooting at people, being shot at / in a war he thought he was done with." The phrase “camouflaged / from Wednesday” is particularly striking, as if the soldier is not just blending into the background but actively disappearing from time itself, as if he has already begun fading from his child's life. The soldier's presence interrupts the father’s personal reflection, shifting the poem toward its broader critique of military policy. This soldier is experiencing another kind of stop-loss—the bureaucratic one, in which his return home is temporary, his fate dictated by forces beyond his control. Hicok then critiques the euphemistic beauty of military language: "What a beautiful phrase for the army / to support." The irony is heavy—the term stop-loss should suggest protection, yet in the military context, it extends suffering. The next lines twist the phrase further: "In it, I hear / that we’re through with grenades, / the violent enterprise of steel, / we’re on to the new war, the war against / the cannibalism of war." Here, Hicok sarcastically suggests that the phrase “stop-loss” sounds almost utopian, as if it signals an end to bloodshed, when in reality, it perpetuates it. The phrase “the cannibalism of war” encapsulates the self-devouring nature of violence—how war feeds upon itself, sustaining an endless cycle of destruction. The final section of the poem brings us back to the father’s internal struggle: "Hurrah for us, / for you, fighting the impulse / to see the end in everything." This statement is both celebratory and deeply melancholic. The father fights not only against literal loss but against his own tendency to anticipate it at every turn. The final image is of the daughter climbing onto the bus: "this spring day, the giant steps / of the bus she has to climb, literally, / as you would a mountain." The metaphor likens her small effort to an epic feat, but the key moment comes next: "not thinking, / for once, she will fall, but feeling, / for an instant, she will make it, / without ropes, in a pink dress, laughing." This is the only true stop-loss achieved in the poem—not through war policy, not through resisting time, but in a single, pure moment of unburdened presence. Hicok’s "Stop-Loss" is ultimately about how we attempt—and often fail—to stop the inevitable. Whether it is the loss of innocence, the loss of loved ones, or the loss of life itself, the desire to stop it is universal. Yet the poem suggests that while war and bureaucracy turn stop-loss into a cruel irony, in personal life, we can still experience temporary victories. In fleeting moments—watching a child climb a bus, choosing to be present rather than anticipating grief—we briefly succeed in holding loss at bay.
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