About John

Two wild, brown horses are leaning over a clay house fence outside. In the background are trees found in Southwest American deserts, and the silhouette of mountains peaks out behind them. In the foreground, a man wearing glasses is slightly off screen so that only his arm and half of his face is shown. One of the horses is laying its head on the man's shoulder affectionately.

Most of my poetry is narrative and about places or people or things in nature that interest me. We overlook a lot every day, and have strongly preconceived ideas of what we do see and hear. I like to challenge this. I’m sometimes called a poet of place. Places become more interesting because of the people who live there. We’re all exotic to somebody—even in our day-to-day activities—whether we’re in Taipei or Chicago. They notice things about us that we no longer can see; we in turn notice things about them. It’s all worth writing about.

John Hicks is a New Mexico poet, living on the southern end of the Rockies. Over the past seven years his work has appeared in over74 journals and anthologies in the US and 11 other countries. He has been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net.