Trish Hopkinson is a poet, blogger, and advocate for the literary arts. She was born in Missouri in 1972 and has resided in Utah County since childhood. She received a BS from UVU in English in 2013 and works as a product director for a local software company.
Her poetry has been published in several lit mags and journals, including Tinderbox, Glass Poetry Press, and The Penn Review; her third chapbook Footnote was published by Lithic Press in 2017, and her most recent e-chapbook Almost Famous was published by Yavanika Press in 2019. She has received poetry awards from the Utah State Poetry Society and the Utah Arts Festival, and her poetry website/blog has been featured by WordPress Discover and listed in Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers. Her website includes hundreds of interviews with literary magazines, journals, and presses with a focus of sharing information on how to write, publish, or participate in the larger poetry community. Hopkinson has presented workshops and webinars for The International Women’s Writing Guild and Finding the Writer Within and has participated in panels for the Utah Poetry Festival and the Utah State Poetry Society.
Hopkinson is one of two alternating literary arts program coordinators for the Utah Arts Festival, co-founder and director of Rock Canyon Poets since 2014, a regional poetry group with over 50 members, annual members retreat, monthly reading series, and two anthologies published annually since 2014: Orogeny, a collection of Rock Canyon Poets work; and Inspired, a collection from the community poetry writing workshop she teaches every year with support from Utah Humanities. She co-founded Provo Poetry in 2015 to feature Utah poets in Poemball vending machines with three permanent locations in Provo and Salt Lake City. Provo Poetry and Rock Canyon Poets have been featured on KSL, KRCL, 15 Bytes, Slug Magazine, The Daily Herald, and City Weekly among others. In addition, Hopkinson curates Poetry Happens, a monthly feature on KRCL’s RadioACTive for which she announces poetry events and opportunities in Utah.
Works
Other Ways
Other Ways
There are so many good ways to go
— while aged and sleeping, loved
ones tending to those last moments,
a legacy prepared well in advance,
a vase selected for ashes or a quote
for a headstone.
There are other ways, maybe less planned
but perhaps just as good — the final fall
of a skydiver after 2,500 successful jumps
might be the perfect way, or after years
of chemo and radiation, making it to
your youngest son’s graduation
before letting your body rest.
There are other ways that are ruthless
— dancing in a nightclub or at a concert,
at worship in a church or synagogue,
in a classroom, at work, or even at Walmart
where you happen to be shopping
with your new husband and two-month-old
shielding each other from semi-automatic fire
until only your child survives.
Lately, it seems the good ways go
unnoticed while we just try to keep count.
Originally published by Glass: A Journal of Poetry (August 15, 2019)
In my mother’s mouth
In my mother’s mouth
I sandpaper my calloused heels
on her molars, lie flat
on my own mothered stomach, stretchmarks
rest on her worn taste buds, wonder
how my presence tastes to her now, sour
teen rebellion, bitter
as my oversteeped self, or too sweet
like my first steps, my first words.
I prop myself on an elbow, look out her front teeth
—the chipped one on the left, where she once
bumped her mouth on a fountain.
Her mouth is home—acceptance despite
my disbelief, mostly, and host to her own
martyrdom. She named it that herself.
All that she is feminine, is all that’s been
taken from her. I lean in
toward the back of her throat to listen,
try to hear what she hears, see if I can
feel her heart radiate upward—and it does,
it’s warm as the postum in her handled cup, but
the sound is only her breath
and her voice, quieted.
Originally published by The Rumpus (May 21, 2019)
Three Miracles
Three Miracles
1) You can still taste.
You’ve been out of the hospital
for a while, but the vertigo is back.
The ENT says, It might take a few treatments
to shift the crystals of your inner ear, as he positions
you carefully on the table, directs the motion
of your bandaged head, up then down,
side to side. I read somewhere that animals
respond differently when they can’t smell.
Take mice, for example—they lose weight
when odor-deprived. Oddly, it has nothing
to do with smelling food, more with
metabolism. It’s simple to think
the loss of smell is minor—not like sight
or sound. Be mindful, the ENT says. Make sure
to turn off gas appliances; don’t eat expired foods;
always wear deodorant. Dolphins,
on the other hand, can’t smell at all—
they lack olfactory nerves but have more
taste-sensitivity and don’t have to worry
about asphyxiation, b.o., or soured milk.
You ask, Will I ever be able to smell again?
What happens is, when the head gets jolted,
neurosensors used to detect scents
get shaved off. Sometimes
they grow back within six months.
What happens if they don’t?
2) Your short-term memory
will be back to normal within a year.
3) You don’t remember the actual accident.
Originally published by The Penn Review (February 6, 2019)
Resurrection Party
Resurrection Party
You ask me to take the Christ costume
out of the closet. It’s been a year
since your consciousness went
missing—stunned out of you
into the road: collision of machine & boy,
no pulse in your wrists, your ghost
gasping. Crash doesn’t capture it: your halo
ringing as it bounced from gutter
to sidewalk, singing down concrete
end over end. I wonder, did you throw
your shoulder against your eyelids, wanting
to burst through those last slits
of light? Your recollection of this
is dead, as is the seven days
after. Yes, the neuro-surgeons were pleased
when you answered: your name, the year, but didn’t
know your whereabouts. You told us in nature, lying
hazily in chirping forest, or at a tattoo parlor
getting ink on your abdomen: the half-arch
of a rainbow. Sometimes, you’d remember
you’re in the neuro ICU & we’d
celebrate. Funny—the detachment of body
and brain. I smile when I see the party photos
you post online: you, dressed as Christ,
thorny crown, death metal makeup,
bottle of Hennessey in your hand.
Originally published by Tinderbox (December 2017)
Bibliography
Almost Famous, Yavanika Press, 2019.
Footnote, Lithic Press, 2017.
Pieced Into Treetops, SLCC Community Writing Center, 2013.
Emissions, self-published, 2012.
Orogeny, Rock Canyon Poets, volumes 1 – 5, 2015 – 2019.
Inspired: A Community Poetry Writing Experience, Rock Canyon Poets, volumes 1 – 5, 2015 – 2019.
Links
- 15 Bytes: Utah’s Art Magazine “Episode 13: Trish Hopkinson and Jennifer Tonge at READ LOCAL” (April 21, 2019)
- Sundress Academy for the Arts: SAFTAcast: “Episode 58: Trish Hopkinson!” (August 17, 2016)
- Poem feature reading, “Other Ways”
- Featured poet with Tacey Atsitty
- Rossiter, Shawn. “Trish Hopkinson: Attending to Poetry.” (April 8, 2019)
- “Read Local Sunday: Trish Hopkinson.” (August 20, 2017)
- Roka, Les. “Utah Arts Festival 2019: For literary arts’ 25th year, a new name – Wordfest – signals wider path in creative expression” (June 17, 2019)
- Roka, Les. “Utah Arts Festival 2019: What’s the new vibe for the 43rd edition? Many new faces, events at all venues” (June 6, 2019)
- Salt Lake City Weekly (online interview): Renshaw, Scott. “Three new area coordinators bring new ideas to the 2019 Utah Arts Festival” (June 19, 2019)
- Weist, Ellen Fagg. “Provo writer waxes poetic with words from Salt Lake Tribune stories.” (April 30, 2014). Print and online.
- Means, Sean P. “Provo poet finds inspiration in the Tribune.” The Cricket. (April 23, 2014)
- The Daily Herald (interview): “Poemball machine provides pops of poetry to Provo” (2016)
- KSL Interview (video interview/feature): “‘Poemball machine’ showcases local poets at Provo cafe” (2016)
- City Weekly (interview): “Poem in a Ball–Provo Poetry connects the Utah Valley community to verse, one quarter at a time” (2016)
- SLUG Magazine (interview): Call, Tyson. “Sound, Symbolism & Meter: Utah Poetry.” (November 30, 2017)
- Daily Herald (interview): “Rock Canyon Poets show nuclear power's cost in ‘Nuclear Impact Utah’” (May 6, 2017)
- Daily Herald (interview): “Newly formed Rock Canyon Poets perform at Utah Arts Fest” (June 25, 2015)
