May 24, 1964-April 19, 2026
John Hicks and his wife Tolly
By Editor Sharon Waller Knutson
Since Storyteller Poetry Review is a community of poets over sixty, I dreaded the day when we’d have to say a permanent goodbye to one of our poets but I didn’t dream that John Hicks would be the first to leave us since a few of us are older than him. I was shocked and deeply saddened to lose John because we had a personal connection. He lived in New Mexico, and I live in Arizona and we bonded over our love of not only poetry but desert life, animals – domestic and wild - sunsets and sunrises, nature and the recent loss of our soulmates. I published many of his poems in Storyteller Poetry Review features: Storyteller of the Week, Love Story, Special Gifts and Encore and the super-sized series. He was also very supportive of other storyteller’s poems.
John Hicks has been called a Place Poet because he wrote many poems about the places where he visited and lived. In honor of John, I am publishing a poem I wrote about him and poems he sent me that I never had a chance to publish.which show another side of him.
Biography John wrote for his Storyteller of the Week feature.
John Hicks took a poetry class in 2007 at The Loft in Minneapolis and began writing while working as a business systems analyst.
He continued writing in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and Connecticut while contracting on computer projects in insurance, brokerage, manufacturing, banking, and agriculture.
His poems have been published in journals and anthologies like Constellations, Global Poemic, South Florida Poetry Journal, Panorama Journal, First Literary Review – East, Sheila-Na-Gig, San Pedro River Review, Shark Reef, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Bangor Literary Journal, Noctua Review, Poetica Review, Verse Virtual, and Wild Word.
He’s been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net.
To celebrate retirement in 2016, he completed a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska – Omaha.
John and Tolly celebrated their 50th anniversary at home during the pandemic. Their daughter, currently developing his web site, lives in Texas.
He’s working on two poetry manuscripts in the thin mountain air of New Mexico’s southern Rockies.
He is a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Poems
John Helps Me to Grieve
By Sharon Waller Knutson
When he hears my husband died June 30, 2025, John,
the only widower in my poet community emails me.
“Sharon, I'm so very sorry to hear this,” John writes.
“As you know, I've recently gone through this.
Let me know if you want someone to talk to.”
Six months later, I email him asking
how he manages his grief after the loss
of his wife, Tolly, in 2023 two days
before Thanksgiving, after 52 years of marriage.
“Tolly passed a few days before I was scheduled
to go to Denver for cancer treatments,” he replies. “She insisted
on my going. So, as soon as I completed her final arrangements,
I closed up the house and, with our daughter, Megan,
went to Denver for four months. I'm not one for burdening others
with my emotions, but during that time, the chance to help Megan
with her grief helped me, too. I'd like to say writing helped,
but for months medical treatments taxed my mental abilities.
What sustained me was knowing I was doing what Tolly wanted.
“Grief hit hardest when I returned home to restart life.
You know how that transition is, Sharon.
And I could no longer share things with Tolly,
we could no longer do things together,
bounce things off each other, discuss each other's work.
“Writing to my grief started after I got back. You know how
it helps you see things in new ways, find things you took for granted.
Also—though I didn’t realize the benefit at the time—
I started digitizing old photos into my computer.
It helped me recall the best of our life together.
“Grief is a room added to your house. Its door is always ajar.
Sometimes we need to spend a little time there,
but it's not where we live. Over time we visit it less often,
but it’s always there for us.
“By now I’m sure you suspect grief never goes away;
it changes, though. I think about Tolly every day.
I miss us. I still say ”we." Sometimes I'll hear a noise
in the house and turn toward her. I’ll bet you do that, too.
“Over time I'm finding that grief—like the guilt
that comes with it—finds its place in daily living.
The best parts of our life together have risen to the top. “
When I tell him my sons dropped everything
and jumped into their trucks
and drove from Idaho and Washington
to Arizona to take care of me
when I couldn’t get out of bed
after their father’s death and later when I fell
twice in one day, he writes: “That’s pure love.”
We continue emailing back and forth consoling
each other as we struggle to survive alone
in the houses we shared with our soulmates.
I never hear from him after I write: “My goal
is to stay healthy and out of hospitals.”
Then I read a message from Megan
on John’s Facebook page: “My father passed away
of complications from a hospital stay April 19.”
Now I mourn the man who helped me grieve.
Seven short poems by John Hicks
Distances
Hear that? There it is again. That’s a dove.
It’s saying, “I’m here. Where are you?”
And down there, across the creek bed:
Hear the response?
Your mom called this morning.
You were asleep. Told her
you’re doing OK.
Sometimes wonder if the Pueblo folks
used to come up here for the wild horses.
Did you see the hoofprints back there?
Easy to spot when sun’s this low.
She didn’t like it here. Said
nothing ever happened. Wanted
to be back in Chicago.
Cities give some folks a major high. But
you’ve got to stay there for it. Get away a bit—
get it out of your face—you can find
your spirit’s own pace. It’s always there.
Those clouds out there beyond the Rio Grande—
like cotton balls spilled out on a glass table?
Distance isn’t the same when you see so much.
I like how they bring the sky down. It’s like
you can touch it.
That big juniper by your bedroom window?
Come October you should see it.
Flickers and robins go crazy
riding up and down on the branch tips
going for its berries. Can you remember
planting it? You were three.
Left not long after.
I think about you when I look at it.
Your mom said you’ve a full summer lined up.
Call, won’t you?
Breakfast with Grandpa
Started with rustle of ground sausage in the iron pan.
and, “How do you want your eggs?” as he rapped one
on the metal edge of the countertop, opening it
one-handed, and tossing the shell into the trash bag.
Louder hissing as they dropped into the grease
until the sigh when he hovered pan above plates
of toast and butter, dividing the contents
with the steel spatula.
At home it was poached eggs, or scrambled
in a double-boiler, or soft-boiled in a little cup.
Grease was manly. We ate in silence. He saw me
eyeing the grape jelly, pushed it toward me,
his knife clinking against the side.
We wiped up yolks and grease with our toast,
swirling it into the center of the plate.
“Less to clean up,” he winked.
I knew little about him before he picked me up
to spend Saturday night on the boat—only that
he’d grown up in Arkansas on a farm. Last night
he told me his father had given each son an acre
to raise a crop for their own money.
A farm hand, a former slave, told him to plant peanuts.
His older brothers laughed at that and put in cotton.
And while they watched theirs grow, the hand had him
hoeing, carrying water, and at harvest, pulling up roots
and rolling them in a barrel to knock off the dirt.
And how he laughed when he made more money
than both of them, and how the next year, they all
put in peanuts.
At ten years old, I had no story to offer in return.
But then, men don’t need to talk.
Burning Privacy
Saturdays you took a Blue Diamond
from your apron pocket,
struck it on the rust-crusted wire basket
in the garden’s bald spot,
and burned bills and receipts
down to last Saturday.
As I watched the soft ticking of flame
spreading across the papers,
you said this would prevent gossip.
You never mentioned the grip
of your generation’s genetic material:
the Great Depression. After the War,
everyone wanted to look middle class.
But the new prosperity conflicted
with stubborn habits, like thinning with water,
and hiding wear by reversing cuffs and collars,
of making do or doing without.
Discarded bills and receipts told what you paid
for your new dress and where you bought it,
the cut of meat you could afford at Safeway,
that you made long-distance phone calls,
that you wrote checks instead of paying cash.
Gossip loves details.
No one shared the hard times with children.
In its place, Dad, passed on to me
how to fix things, like old lamps or broken locks—
instead of buying new—and how to mix cement,
how replace a sink and solder copper plumbing,
tar a roof rather than of hiring it done.
They meant well, hiding those years, and
how some were still struggling. It’s like the ER nurse
who lives across the street from us. In the morning,
when her shift ends, she comes home and changes,
then fixes breakfast for her children,
never speaking of what she saw the night before.
Enclosures
On the edge of the veranda
in the shadows of the overhang,
at an angle to the steps, she stands
with her palm out in the downpour
as if judging it. Splashes
on the floor coat her bare feet,
and she stares as the water clinging
to her fingertips is followed by more.
It is cold on her skin.
Monsoon season again.
She looks up to the face of the jungle,
its steeping heat surrounding their clearing.
He no longer tells her to ignore its reek.
The only road—east to west—ends here.
To the west, his plantation rubber trees
drip from his daily attention,
from slashes in their bark,
gathering latex, and processing. East,
over the mountains, the settlement
is now unreachable.
Teeth gripping her bottom lip,
she turns to the open door. Footprints
and a trail of drops cross the floor.
Relationship Building – A Seminar
“Before we start today, I want
you all to turn to your neighbor.
Introduce yourself. Give name, what
you do, and a little about yourself.
Take two minutes.
Start now.”
“Now that we all know each other, I’d like
you to look up here.” She turns toward
the giant screen and raises her open palm
theatrically. “This first slide shows
what I’ll talk about today. Questions?
None? Good. Let’s get started.”
Her touring speaker’s swagger brings her
to a stance at the front of the platform.
“Who can give me a definition
of relationship building?” A hand
there in the back. “Yes?”
“Today I am going to show you how to schmooze
the customer and your partners at work, and how
to manage your work relationships. Why?
Because relationships lubricate our success
in business. I will challenge existing paradigms,
and you will learn how to manufacture
win-win results.” She stalks toward the screen
as she reads the next bullet point.
“It takes two to tango, people.”
Hands on hips, facing the audience.
“Remember, unless you live on a desert island,
you can’t get anything done without
cooperation from those around you.”
We nod in agreement.
“For those who are serious about
building better relationships, my
book, Ten Points to Win-Win Relationships,
is on sale at the back table.”
“The key to successful relationships is
communication. It is essential to see things
from the other person’s point of view. Encourage
people to talk about themselves and they
will trust you. Remember:
The person with the questions is the person with the power.
Your questions will assert what they think about.
Say it with me now.”
We chant back,
“The person with the questions
is the person with the power.”
Il Postino di Vicenza
“Mailman in Italy stashed half-ton of
mail in his garage, postal police say.”
- AP January 29, 2018
Father, I’m going to miss the smell of the fresh pasticcio
Mrs. Toniolo makes, and Mr. Zanella’s homemade wine,
and Mrs. Rossato’s polenta—she grinds the corn herself,
you know, Father. And Mrs. Dalla Vecchia’s daughter,
the woman whose singing dappled my heart like the sun
on the Golfo di Napoli.
I’m going to miss everyone.
I never completed my route on time, Father,
but always I finished with a comfortable stomach
and a full heart. The Postmaster: every day
he weighed the mail going out and coming in and
moved our routes around by weight. The more
I brought in, the more customers I could lose
to another carrier. I would lose my friends.
Father, they loved me.
Then
“Come on then. There’s work to do if
we’re to have wood when you’ve gone.
Bring the crosscut.”
Weak light through the window;
too weak for shadows. The bus
is hours away.
My kit’s by the door. Recruiter
said bring just toothbrush and razor;
they’d provide the rest.
We leave the lamp for Ma. He
collects the hammer and wedges.
I take the saw from the shed.
When I get there, he’s lifted a limb
of the downed oak onto the sawhorse; stands
on the other side, breath-clouds before him.
We work until the sun stands over the barn;
he takes an armload to the house.
I return the saw.
“So that’s it then.” He stiffens,
extends his hand. I know
she’s watching; her parcel’s
in my left hand. He turns away.
I look into my hands;
then walk out to the road.
Relationship Building was published in Lincoln Underground.
Il Postino di Vicenza in Glint
Distances in Santa Fe Literary Review
Then in Sheila-Na-Gig
Breakfast with Grandpa in Backchannels Journal
Burning Privacy in Constellations
Enclosures in Verse-Virtual
