David Hopler

What is your favorite art medium to work in, and why?

Poetry and fiction. I have been drawn to creative writing as a means to express my inner self since I was about 11 years old. I grew up in a dysfunctional household, and words and stories became a way for me to find some escape from that outer turmoil.

When did you first figure out that art was important to you?

In sixth grade, I had an older teacher by the name of Mrs. Hayes. I don't recall liking her very much. She seemed not to be all that interested in teaching. However, about midway through the year, we were lucky enough to have a student teacher come in named Ms. Merrill. She was young and beautiful, and I fell head over heels in love with her. She took us out to a stand of redwood trees near our classroom and had us write poetry. To be honest, I don't know that I really knew what a poem was at that point. I just wrote intuitively. The next day she read the poem to the class, and I remember thinking, this is what I want to do with my life—be a writer. Yes, part of it was to impress Ms. Merrill, but a good deal of it was just the enjoyment I experienced in the writing and the sharing of the poem with others.

Who is your art mentor?

I have had so many of them it's hard to count. I am indebted to my high school creative writing teachers: Gloria Markoff, Jim Bacchus, and Ray Schellbred. I am deeply thankful that I got to study with Jim Galvin and Jorie Graham at HSU. I worked with several writing teachers in graduate school, including John Wideman, Valerie Martin, and Jay Neugeboren. I never had one central mentor to guide my poetry. I would say that it was a process of continuing to grow under a variety of teachers.

Finish this sentence: My art is my...

My art is the fire that lights my soul. It is what clears away the darkness and helps to waken me out of the mundane workaday world that so often wants to treat us as mere drones, mere consumers. My writing reminds me that we are all so much more than that.

What advice would you offer someone just beginning their exploration of their own artistic self?

For writers I would say read a lot. Write a lot. Develop a discipline about your work and don't let your other obligations—be they work, school, a relationship, children—interfere with that creative work. It's far too easy to let those day-to-day obligations prevent you from creating. I think of Tillie Olsen's marvelous book “Silences,” about how marriage and family have silenced so many women in the world. I could relate to those women writers, having myself been silenced for about a decade due to the economic pressures of supporting my wife and family. If I could go back to the start of that period and give myself some advice, I'd say: don't stop writing. Write every day. That discipline will change your life.

Do you have a website or blog you would like us to link to?

https://www.davidholper.com