H. L. Hix’s poetry collections have not been merely collections.  Each fulfills a vision that creates a whole greater than the sum of its parts: each poem contributes to a sequence, each sequence talks to another.  For readers already acquainted with Hix’s ambitions, then, the subtitle “Obsessionals” (instead of “Selected Poems”) will need no explanation: from collections that don’t just collect, what sense would it make for a selection just to select?

Hix’s poems were already at work rewriting and recontextualizing the language of others, language from sources as various as fragments of Pythagoras, apocryphal gospels, and speeches of George W. Bush.  In First Fire, Then Birds (2010), Hix keeps at the task, recontextualizing his own poems, creating a revision (seeing anew) and recomposition (putting together afresh) of an already distinctive body of work.

The subtitle “Obsessionals” also registers that, though Hix has fashioned First Fire, Then Birds mostly from his poetry, enough prose finds a place here to signal that this book aims to integrate all of Hix’s explorations: one piece is brought forward, for instance, from his essay collection Spirits Hovering Over the Ashes (State University of New York Press, 1995), whose title, itself a remaking of Wittgensteinian language, presages this book’s title, First Fire, Then Birds.  Readers already aware of this essential writer’s work will find here its fullest development to date; readers new to Hix will be welcomed into the most comprehensive introduction available.

H. L. Hix has published five books of poetry, a book of literary criticism, and an anthology with Etruscan, and has another book forthcoming.  He teaches in the Creative Writing MFA at the University of Wyoming.  His awards include the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Peregrine Smith Award, and fellowships from the NEA, the Kansas Arts Commission, and the Missouri Arts Council.

Publication date: September 2010