Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Bob Hicok’s "Growing at the Speed of Fashion" is a poignant and unsettling meditation on childhood’s loss to societal pressures, particularly in the way young girls internalize impossible beauty standards. The poem follows an eight-year-old girl who is already preoccupied with her appearance, her body, and how she is seen by others. Hicok juxtaposes the innocence of childhood with the intrusion of a culture that sells beauty as a commodity, rendering her sense of self unstable before she has even fully developed.

The opening lines immediately establish the poem’s concern with the way advertising shapes self-perception: "It gets harder to find untroubled ways to feel beautiful / with so many nipples selling beer on TV." Hicok points to the omnipresence of hyper-sexualized imagery, which infiltrates the consciousness of even the youngest minds. The phrase "untroubled ways to feel beautiful" suggests that beauty, in a natural and self-affirming sense, should be an effortless experience, yet the contemporary world complicates this, making it an anxiety-ridden pursuit. The girl, at just eight years old, already doubts her body’s right to take up space: "Her hips alone are schizophrenic, too wee for the wiggle she wants / though she’s also convinced they could be smaller." The contradiction in her thinking—desiring both maturity and diminishment—mirrors the impossible paradoxes imposed by fashion and media, which demand both curves and thinness, presence and invisibility.

Hicok interrupts this contemplation of the girl’s struggle with a memory of his own childhood: "I remember things about eight that might be relevant here / like not remembering anything about eight." This humorous but poignant admission reflects the difference between the experiences of boys and girls; while he was free to be oblivious, she is hyper-aware. He describes himself as a child "with exploding hair" and a love for dirt, reinforcing the contrast between the carefree nature of his own youth and the girl’s premature self-consciousness. "Hiding should be the career of a child. Breaking things is good or licking rocks." The line carries a wistful longing for a time when play, rather than performance, was the essence of childhood.

Yet, for the girl, performance has already taken hold. "Her ears are pierced, she likes to pull rouge from a plastic purse / and brag it across her cheeks." Even in private moments, she practices for an audience, mimicking the adult world’s emphasis on self-presentation. However, Hicok sees her differently: "Just alone in a corner of the couch with a book and chewing her hair / she’s gorgeous like air and water are to delirious flesh." Here, he offers an alternative perspective on beauty, one that exists in the natural state of being, uncontrived and essential. He reminds us that before external pressures intervene, there is an intrinsic grace in a child simply existing.

The poem then shifts to a more speculative reflection: "When we were fish, cool wasn’t a problem, / gangly girls on the savannah didn’t ask what implants are." By invoking evolutionary history, Hicok contrasts humanity’s past, where survival and movement were the primary concerns, with the present, where social constructs have made young girls worry about their bodies before they even reach puberty. This observation highlights how unnatural such anxieties are—artificial burdens imposed by culture rather than innate human needs.

The final scene is both heartbreaking and deeply telling. The girl, rather than engaging in childlike activities, is outside practicing "the reflex of catwalk." Instead of running to the swings or playing in the dirt, she is rehearsing how to move like a model, "trying to fit inside the glide she’s seen models own." This pursuit of poise, the attempt to perfect a motion that should be intuitive, suggests that she already understands her worth as something to be displayed rather than simply lived. "Her dream defeated by her bones," Hicok writes, acknowledging the tragic irony—her body, still forming, is not yet ready for the performance she has been conditioned to desire. The final image, "she has the drive that comes from knowing / she’s nothing if not watched," delivers a devastating critique of how early self-worth is tied to external validation. The phrase "nothing if not watched" reveals how the girl has absorbed the message that existence is only meaningful if it is performed for an audience, a haunting commentary on the world she is growing into.

Hicok’s structure mirrors the wandering, reflective tone of thought rather than a rigid narrative. The enjambments and lack of punctuation in key moments reinforce the way these ideas bleed into one another, much like how childhood seamlessly absorbs cultural expectations. His diction is simple yet evocative, mixing humor, nostalgia, and stark critique to emphasize the contrast between the natural state of childhood and the manufactured anxieties imposed upon it.

"Growing at the Speed of Fashion" is a powerful exploration of the premature loss of innocence. Hicok presents a child who is both playful and burdened, someone who should be free to explore but is already confined by expectations. Through the speaker’s reflections on his own childhood, the poem highlights the gendered experience of youth, contrasting the freedom of obliviousness with the pressure to be seen, to be beautiful, to be right. In doing so, Hicok not only critiques the cultural forces that shape this experience but also mourns what childhood could be—something less performed, something less troubled.

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