Poetry Response Ability (a manifesto) | Trish Hopkinson

“Today I realize that my text is not going anywhere—except to meet itself.” Octavio Paz

Writing and reading poetry helps me interpret the static in my world—the noise, the many alternate voices; and to determine my roles and how each role alters others—to find the mother, wife, daughter, sister, student, friend, and poet wandering within. I read and write as a woman, as an aspiring artist, as an extension of myself. I write out of necessity, out of bursting urges, and with determination and courage. I write bravely, when all else is quiet, shy, and scared, to share secrets, and to solve mysteries. I read and write for relief—to find and fill in my personal perspective, to extract the byproducts of being, to produce an end. The creative process itself and how it reciprocates, is poetry’s true intention; its end—the poem—is the authentic byproduct.

Denial | Trish Hopkinson

The surface of silent sorrow
where eyelids fold, half-rimmed
and wrapped sober over
Hiroshima and Dresden.
Colored by denial and closely
guarded, loss has haunted us.

Featured Friday | Meet Trish Hopkinson

Trish Hopkinson has two chapbooks Emissions and Pieced Into Treetops, and has been published in several anthologies and journals, including The Found Poetry Review, Chagrin River Review, and Reconnaissance Magazine. Check out our interview with her:

Fem: Can you tell us about your blog?

Trish Hopkinson: I started posting regularly and promoting my blog last October. I finished my bachelors in English end of 2013 and wanted to reach out to the poetry and writing online community. This last year or so I’ve been focusing a lot on submissions, reading lit mags, and craft in general, so I thought it would be great to share some of the things I’ve learned along the way. So far I’ve had a lot of positive response and met a lot of really great poets and writers who are doing similar things to support literary arts.