Joseph Leo Hickey

Unity Joseph Leo Hickey

Unity is the second full length poetry book authored by Joseph Leo Hickey. Many of the themes from Baptism of Apathy are carried over into Unity. However, Unity is a more compact and concentrated volume. The work is divided into eight articles or poems of different lengths. There are three main themes of the poems in this work. The first is loneliness and how characters deal with being alone. The second is the idea that every person has a voice and that all voices are valuable. The third is the theme of unity which refers to the power of emotion to unite others. This is seen in the narrative flow of the poems. Each poem consists of the voices of more than one character and it is not always clear who the speaker is. As a result of this, it is easy to see the power of emotions to unite people. Emotions in this way transcend the individual. The main character in this work is Ella Sturm. She loses everything because of the supernatural powers at work in the world, striving to destroy her. Although Ella's story is the backbone of this work, the direct references to her are few and far between. At the same time she is emblematic of most of the poetic language that was utilized in writing this book.