“Bob Hicok's ‘Spirit ditty of no fax-line dial tone’”

I found Bob Hicok's poem “Spirit ditty of no fax-line dial tone” very unsettling, which is good because it means the poem affected me. I think his poem expresses human nature’s tendency to be impersonal, the narrator’s subsequent frustration, and his hope for future clarity.

Hicok gives specific, concrete examples of another individual’s complete disinterest, an abstract concept. He explains that "Betty from the telephone company” is “not concerned/with the particulars of my life" (2-3). Later, he perfectly describes a repairman standing in his kitchen wearing “hula skirt of tools/slung low on his hips" (6-7) who announces matter-of-factly, in a convoluted but funny passage, that:

the problem I have is not the problem
I have because the problem I have cannot occur
in this universe though possibly in an alternate
universe which is not the responsibility or in any way
the product, child, or subsidiary of AT&T (11-15)

Hicok then uses a metaphor to compare the repairman's face to "an abstract painting called Void" (27-28). This comparison conveys how the other man is "void" of any interest, sympathy, or human connection to the poet with a problem. No other person in this poem cares about the narrator or wants to help him fix his problem.

This poem also clearly expresses Hicok’s frustration. He mentions how many times he repeats himself to the repairman, who tracks mud across his white floor for the fifth time (5-8). This man dirties his house to inspect a problem he was supposed to fix already. When he does nothing to help the narrator and avoids further responsibility, Hicok describes the narrator abstaining from building weapons like "a shot gun from what's at hand" (24) or "a taser from hair/caught in the drain" (25-26). The first half of the poem describes events that lead to the rest of the poem’s frustration and hopelessness.

One of the most obvious expressions of frustration is the visceral/auditory description of a "million volts of frustration/popping through my body" (26-27). When we read this imagery, we can imagine an electric current of anger crackling through our own veins. The narrator thanks the repairman but secretly means “fuck you, meaning die” followed by a deluge of obscenely creative insults (33-35). What appears polite and calm on the surface is revealed to be thinly veiled rage at the repairman’s blatant inadequacy and apathy.

At the end of the poem the, narrator suggests the repairman: "reintroduce yourself to the sky" which "will transmit/without fail everything clouds are trying to say to you" (41-43). He gives an example of a medium which delivers honestly and therefore does not frustrate or anger anyone through difficulty or complication. After descriptions of the phone company’s impersonal behavior and the narrator’s vivid frustration, the poem ends with this example and hope for clear and simple communication.

Maybe he’ll get it, maybe he won’t.

--Jessica Murphy