Poem of the Week: Ailish Hopper

Dark-sky Society

Each time, Kenny says

With Love,

I look at you, I see

...........Princess.... Diana

His skin ginger,

..........mine, peony,

And, between us now,

...........The color line,

No static beam

---More like

Light-bomb;

.........Blanching

The....star-

.........Dark,

Our lumen-

..........Natural

-Ailish Hopper

Used by permission.

Ailish Hopper was born and raised in Washington DC. Her chapbook, Bird in the Head, was selected by Jean Valentine for the 2005 Center for Book Arts prize; other poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous places, including American Letters & Commentary, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Tidal Basin Review. She's received grants and fellowships from the Baltimore Commission for the Arts and Humanities, Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo. She lives in Baltimore.

Hopper was on the panel, "Personal and Political: The Difficult Art of Writing a Manuscript of Poems That Bear Witness" at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2008. She attended the 2010 festival.

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