Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Bob Hicok’s "Louise" is a deeply introspective and layered poem that explores faith, devotion, racial and economic disparity, and the complicated intersection of belief and skepticism. The poem is centered around the speaker’s relationship with Louise, a devout Black woman working as a maid in a care facility for people with intellectual disabilities. Through vivid contrasts—between faith and doubt, privilege and struggle, charity and martyrdom—Hicok crafts a poignant meditation on what it means to serve, to give, and to believe.

The poem opens with Louise’s observation: “She said I looked like Jesus, and it was true.” The phrasing here is striking—this is not a metaphorical resemblance, but something literal and uncanny. The speaker describes himself as “the Jesus of Dayton / and Topeka”, immediately grounding the image in an American, middle-of-the-country landscape, rather than in the Biblical context of Jerusalem. This Jesus is not the divine figure of scripture, but the Christ of small towns, community centers, and working-class neighborhoods. The imagery that follows—“black hair brushing my shoulders and thin / as martyrdom”—suggests a certain fragility, an asceticism that mirrors traditional depictions of Christ. Yet there is a tension here: “flesh denied but not vanquished” implies that while the speaker may resemble the suffering Christ, he does not fully embody the role. He is marked by hunger, but not by transcendence.

Louise, in contrast, is a woman who has lived her faith—“A maid forever, she’d lived / on her knees, black / skin crosshatched with a web of white lines.” This image is devastating: her skin, marked by a lifetime of scrubbing floors, is both physically and symbolically scarred. The "crosshatched" lines resemble not just labor’s imprint but also the markings of a cross, reinforcing the idea that she is the true embodiment of sacrifice and devotion. Hicok then offers a visual detail that speaks volumes: “which from a distance looked like powder.” This simile evokes racial and historical connotations—powder as in dust, as in erasure, as in cocaine, as in the residue of labor that never ends. The pain and wear on her body are so ingrained they appear as something else entirely.

The setting, a “home for the retarded”, is significant. This is a space of care, but also of loss and societal neglect. The men in the facility are described as having “fallen from the womb with key / chromosomes snapped”, a phrase that emphasizes both fragility and randomness—something broken at birth, something unfixable. The speaker, in his agnostic view, sees their conditions as an accident, but Louise sees plan. This fundamental divide—between faith and skepticism—runs throughout the poem. While the speaker processes the world rationally, Louise operates with a different kind of certainty. Her belief is active, engaging: “She talked / to God and God talked back”. This dialogue is both comforting and, to the speaker, unsettling.

One of the poem’s most remarkable moments is Louise’s conversation with God, which involves “degreasers, her son, the cabdriver from Trinidad / who refused to right / the cross hanging upside down from his mirror.” This detail adds complexity to Louise’s faith—it is practical, concerned with daily needs (degreasers for cleaning), personal worries (her son), and religious symbols (the Trinidadian driver’s cross). The upside-down cross, traditionally associated with either St. Peter’s martyrdom or satanic imagery, becomes a small yet significant test of faith in her world. The phrase “Crazy / if you’d just met her, determined if you knew she was eighty” acknowledges how easily devotion can be dismissed as eccentricity, but also how deeply ingrained faith becomes after a lifetime of hardship.

Louise’s material generosity stands in contrast to the speaker’s detached contemplation. She believes “love / and grace” are “discovered in acts rather than words”—a direct critique of performative faith. This belief manifests in small but meaningful gifts: “canned peaches, Wonder / Bread, even the transistor that no longer caught / any music that floated above 95 on the AM dial”. These items—cheap, nostalgic, seemingly insignificant—become sacred through her giving. She does not question whether the recipients deserve these things, nor does she expect anything in return. Her faith is lived, tangible.

The poem culminates in a moment of quiet irony: “My last day she asked that I stand in a doorway / for a picture.” The act of taking a photo is an attempt to preserve something ephemeral—a moment of connection, a likeness that will remain after the speaker is gone. But the irony, which the speaker resists commenting on, is “a black believer wanting the image of a white agnostic”. This reversal—where the Black woman, who has likely spent her life in service to white families, now desires to memorialize the white man who only resembles Christ—exposes the complex intersections of faith, race, and power. The speaker recognizes the absurdity but “was good, didn’t ask”. Instead, he allows her to “adjust my hair”, a small moment of intimacy that suggests both tenderness and the lingering presence of racialized caregiving.

The final lines deliver the speaker’s quiet revelation: “and tried my best to suppose / redemption was not only warranted but possible, that / I could hang / from a cross and think of anything but revenge.” This is the poem’s most profound confession. The speaker, despite his skepticism, wants to believe in redemption—but he cannot fully embrace it. He struggles with the idea that sacrifice can be pure, that suffering can lead to grace rather than anger. The contrast with Louise is clear—she has spent her life in devotion, in giving, without resentment. The speaker, however, doubts whether he could do the same. His Christ-like appearance is surface-level; his true nature is uncertain.

Hicok’s "Louise" is a masterful meditation on faith and doubt, on racial and economic divides, and on the ways people navigate suffering. Louise embodies a faith of action, while the speaker wrestles with belief intellectually, unable to fully commit. Yet, in the end, the poem does not condemn skepticism—it simply acknowledges the gap between knowing and believing, between looking like salvation and living it.

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