Rick Hilles's ecent poems, translations, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in: American Literary Review, Cimarron Review, Five Points, Kenyon Review, Literary Imagination, Michigan Quarterly Review, Narrative Magazine, New Letters, Smartish Pace, Southern Review, storySouth, and Tar River Poetry. In 2022, his chapbook My Roberto Clemente, winner of the 2020 Winter Soup Bowl competition, was published by C&R Press. In the summer of 2023, he was the recipient two returning fellowship residency opportunities to the James Merrill House in Stonington, CT and to the Bogliasco Foundation (in Bogliasco, Italy), where he read at the 2023 International Poetry Festival (in Genoa and Bogliasco).
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Brother SalvagePoemsFrom"Song for an Empty Hand"
And the body is beautifully there, like hoarfrost.
Tears on its face now glimmering like dimes
falling from a slot machine, or a stream, thought lost,
that breaks through fresh snow at wintertime.
From Brother Salvage, posted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press
Brother Salvage:Poems -
Brother SalvagePoemsFrom"The Four-Legged Man"
Throughout, the children see things strange
or stranger than their dads: muskmelons
from Ottawa shaped like a sheriff’s mistress
coupling with a squid.
Sights to make Jesus
weep – the pickled two-headed fetus, a hell
of mirrors, with other horrors under glass.
From Brother Salvage, posted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press
Brother Salvage:Poems -
Brother SalvagePoemsFrom"Visions of Captivity: Neulengbach, 1912"
The irretrievable hours have sifted.
A courtroom near Vienna. A gavel
slams. Order. Uncharged and held
without bail, here I learn my crime:
Impropriety. That young vagrant
haunts me still. She came into my room
one night, disrobed, insisting she work
for rent; and though underage, unlovely,
I obliged.
From Brother Salvage, posted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press
Brother Salvage:Poems
“Complex and symphonic, with sections and movements that unfold slowly and inform each other, the poems in Rick Hilles’ lovely second collection examine the nature of memory and the trials of coming to grips with the past. Many of the poems are narrative-based—story-like, plotted and wonderfully compelling . . . Whether sifting through his own memories or channeling the voices of the past, Hilles composes poems that, ultimately, honor history and the personal stories that lie behind it.” —BookPage [on A Map of the Lost World]
“Rick Hilles should be commended for taking on the large and risky task of writing poems on various cultures and their political histories in this book. From the Holocaust to ancient Egyptian mysteries to the work of Paul Eluard, Hilles approaches complex dimensions of history in highly crafted and brilliant poems. He is successful because he gives himself the lyrical room and forms to succeed. Each poem is different, is structured in challenging ways, and resonates with the skill and talent of a young poet coming into his own and bringing the world with him.” —Bloomsbury Review [on Brother Salvage]
”Shows the power of the narrative in poetry to remind us, in concise and elegant language, of our shared humanity . . . Between Hilles’ mastery of Keats’ ‘negative capability’ and his command of language both elegant yet clear and clean, these poems and their narrators move before the reader’s eyes, engage and entice us to listen to stories that, no matter how large or small, deserve to be heard and treasured.” --Ohioana Quarterly [on Brother Salvage]
Selected Works
- Print Books
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