During his lifetime, Hickman was best known as the publisher and editor of the influential magazine Temblor[1] which was noted for the publication of many east and west coast language-related poets.
After stints in New York City and San Francisco, Hickman settled permanently in Los Angeles with his partner, the actor Charles Macaulay.
His literary career began in the middle 1960s with the publication of the poem "Lee Sr Falls to the Floor" in The Hudson Review.
A second book, Lee Sr Falls to the Floor (which collected early poems and several sections of "Tiresias"), was published posthumously by Jahbone Press in 1991.
Hickman worked as a poetry editor for the Los Angeles literary magazine Bachy,[5] published by Papa Bach Bookstore, from 1977 to the spring of 1981.