Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Bob Hicok’s "Another Awkward Stage of Convalescence" is a poem of drunken yearning, regret, and self-deception, a portrait of emotional disarray masked by intoxicated philosophizing. The poem, structured as an interior monologue, moves erratically through bursts of romanticization, self-pity, and raw realization, capturing the fractured state of a speaker trying—and failing—to escape loss.

The opening line—"Drunk, I kissed the moon where it stretched on the floor."—immediately places the speaker in an altered state of perception. The image of the moon on the floor suggests both literal moonlight and a distorted, self-deluding act of reverence. This is not an otherworldly, spiritual experience but a drunken, misplaced affection for an unreachable celestial body. The second line explains how he arrived at this moment: "I’d removed happiness from a green bottle, both sipped and gulped just as a river changes its mind." The contrast between sipping and gulping mirrors the speaker’s unstable emotions, unable to decide between moderation and reckless indulgence.

The simile—"mostly there was a flood in my mouth because I wanted to love the toaster as soon as possible"—introduces a darkly humorous absurdity. The speaker’s drunken euphoria causes him to assign grand significance to ordinary objects—the "toothbrush with multilevel bristles created by dental science," the "walls holding pictures in front of their faces to veil the boredom of living fifty years without once turning the other way." These exaggerated attributions reflect both an artificial joy induced by alcohol and an underlying desperation to connect with something, even if it’s just a toaster or a wall.

This intoxicated wonder culminates in a grand delusion: "I wanted the halo a cheap Beaujolais paints over everything like artists gave the holy before perspective was invented." The speaker compares the effects of wine to religious iconography, highlighting how drunkenness distorts reality, making even the mundane seem divine. But the mention of "before perspective was invented" is telling—this is an artificial, primitive view of the world, not a sober or fully realized one. The speaker is fully aware that this glow is temporary, that it lacks depth.

The next passage takes this illusion further into a utopian fantasy: "the bending of spoons by will was inevitable, just as the dark-skinned would kiss the light-skinned and those with money and lakefront homes would open their verandas and offer trays of cucumber sandwiches to the poor." Here, the speaker likens the ability to "bend spoons by will"—a reference to telekinesis, a belief in mind over matter—to social harmony and economic justice. His intoxicated optimism envisions an impossible world where racial and class divisions dissolve. Yet, the exaggeration of "cucumber sandwiches" underscores the irony—his idealism is both naïve and rooted in privilege, a drunken fantasy that will not materialize.

The poem shifts when the speaker acts on his impulse to share this feeling, calling a former lover: "Of course I had to share this ocean of acceptance and was soon on the phone with a woman from Nogales whose hips had gone steady with mine." The phrase "whose hips had gone steady with mine" is a tender yet detached way to reference their past intimacy. The call is framed as an innocent gesture—"I told her I was over her by pretending I was just a friend calling to say the snowdrops had nuzzled through dirt to shake their bells in April wind." The choice of "snowdrops"—a delicate flower that emerges in early spring—suggests a forced attempt at renewal, a contrived optimism meant to mask his pain.

However, his "cement mixer of a voice" betrays his real emotions. The phrase evokes a slurred, heavy tone, contrasting sharply with the gentle image of snowdrops. The long pause, during which he "memorized her breathing and stared at my toes like we were still together," reveals the true purpose of the call—not to share joy, but to resurrect intimacy, if only for a moment. The image of their past—"reading until our eyes slid from the page and books fell off the bed to pound their applause as our tongues searched each other’s bodies."—is romantic and sensual, yet in this context, it becomes a ghost of what once was, a memory desperately clung to.

The woman’s response—"she said she had to go like a cop telling a bum to move on."—is cold, dismissive, reducing the speaker to an unwanted presence. The simile is particularly effective in emphasizing the power dynamic: she is in control, and he is merely a transient figure, lingering where he is not welcome.

The poem’s conclusion is where the rawest truth emerges: "I began drinking downhill, with speed that grew its own speed." The metaphor captures the accelerating collapse, the rapid descent into deeper drunkenness, fueled by the realization that he has been fully forgotten. The final, devastating image—"how she, returning to bed, cupped her lover’s crotch and whispered not to worry, it was no one on the phone."—seals the speaker’s erasure. He is not even a significant disruption, merely "no one."

The last line—"while I, bent over the cold confessional, listened to the night’s sole point of honesty."—cements the poem’s tragedy. The "cold confessional" suggests a moment of reckoning, but there is no absolution, no divine forgiveness. Instead, the only truth revealed to him is his own insignificance.

Hicok’s "Another Awkward Stage of Convalescence" is a stunning exploration of self-delusion, nostalgia, and the painful clarity of rejection. The poem captures the way alcohol warps perception, granting momentary grandeur before revealing a starker reality. The speaker’s oscillation between humor and heartbreak, between grand philosophizing and intimate sorrow, mirrors the erratic path of grief, making the poem feel both deeply personal and universally resonant.

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