My identity is deeply influenced by frequent moves. First as a child, later because of necessity and choice. From California to Louisiana, from Louisiana to Ohio. From Ohio back to California. Tennessee. Oregon. And finally to Denver, Colorado, a land of extremes in height, dry air, the shock of static electricity and gasping for breath during a hike. How to be a poet in this climate?  This has been my challenge, to create poems that can only be written at this moment in this city, poems not of lushness but of spartan skies and Hatch chilies, weed shops on every corner, and urban neighborhoods running into sprawling suburbs. These past five plus years in Denver have taught me that no matter where we live, no matter where we call home, the land speaks to us, the people move through us, and the poems eventually write themselves. Possibly not the poems we meant to write, but the ones that must be written.

Colette Jonopulos
Denver, Colorado
2017

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Chapbooks:
​The Burden of Wings           http://www.rattlesnakepress.com/rattlechaps_chapbook_series.html
Enough of Daylight           http://www.utteredchaos.org/publications.html
Between                          http://www.tigerseyejournal.com

                                                  

         












                                                      

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