When HoCoPoLitSo and the Columbia Art Center thought up the theme in December 2019 for the annual poetry and visual art collaboration and contest, Blossoms of Hope, we didn’t really understand how much hope we were going to need.

Now we know.

The poetry that emerged from that contest offers solace to those who are grieving and anxious about cancer; the proceeds of the exhibit were supposed to benefit the Claudia Mayer/Tina Broccolino Cancer Resource Center of Howard county General Hospital.

But reading over these poems now, the words seem to apply to a general grief and worry, and certainly to our reaction to the coronavirus pandemic and its many types of fall-out – economic, social, political, cultural.

Planned in collaboration with the Blossoms of Hope Committee, Columbia Art Center, and HoCoPoLitSo, the April exhibit would have shown the work of artists and poets. But when stay-at-home orders arrived, the direction of this project changed and the physical exhibit was canceled.

Instead, we’re showing the work here on HoCoPoLitSo’s site. Some of the writers read their work at an on-line poetry reading May 12.

Thank you to the Blossoms of Hope Committee, Columbia Art Center staff, HoCoPoLitSo, and Wilde Readings for the opportunity to share the work of some amazing writers. Thank you too to all who submitted their work for presentation.

By the time the deadline arrived on March 2, HoCoPoLitSo had received 15 manuscripts based on the inspiring words of poets Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, Joy Harjo, Tiffany Higgins, and Walt Whitman.

Local poets were charged to include lines from the nationally known poets, including Clifton’s line “what did I see to be except myself” from “won’t you celebrate with me”; “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” from Whitman; “’Hope’ is the thing with feathers” from Dickinson; the line from Joy Harjo’s “A Map to the Next World” that reads “Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end”; and Tiffany Higgins’s line “I’d dance my last dance to rescue the hive,” from “Dance, Dance While the Hive Collapses.”
Submissions were reviewed by HoCoPoLitSo board members Susan Thornton Hobby, editor and writer; and Laura Yoo, HCC professor of English.

In keeping with the spirit of the exhibit and inspiration, HoCoPoLitSo, in cooperation with its Wilde Reading series, would like to recognize all the writers who submitted their work.

Hope, like toilet paper, yeast, and hand sanitizer, is a treasured commodity nowadays. Read these poems to stock up on a little light at the end of the tunnel.