Green Squall

Yale Series of Younger Poets

by Jay Hopler, Louise Glück (Introduction)

Jay Hopler's Green Squall is the winner of the 2005 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. As Louise Glück observes in her foreword, “ Green Squall begins and ends in the garden”; however, Hopler’s gardens are not of the seasonal variety evoked by poets of the English lyric—his gardens flourish at lower, fiercer latitudes and in altogether different mindscapes. There is a darkness in Hopler’s work as deep and brutal as any in American poetry. Though his verbal extravagance and formal invention bring to mind Wallace Stevens’s tropical extrapolations, there lies beneath Green Squall’s lush tropical surfaces a terrifying world in which nightmare and celebration are indistinguishable, and hope is synonymous with despair.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2006

About the author

Jay Hopler was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He earned a BA from New York University, an MA from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars, an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a PhD from Purdue University. His first collection of poetry, Green Squall (2006), won a Yale Younger Poets Prize, a Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, a National “Best Books” Award from USA Book News, a Florida Book Award, and a Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Award. His second collection, The Abridged History of Rainfall (2016), was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award in Poetry. His third collection of poems was Still Life (2022). In his evocative and elegiac poems, Hopler engages the philosophical lyric tradition of Wallace Stevens and often draws on the tropical landscapes of Florida. According to poet Katie Ford, “Hopler’s vision and voice [are] both painfully complex because of how much of the world he allows to attach to him, to stake its claim on him.”

Hopler edited The Killing Spirit: An Anthology of Murder for Hire (1998) and, with Kimberly Johnson, Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry (2013). He also edited and translated the collection The Museum of Small Dark Things: 25 Poems by Georg Trakl (2016). He received numerous honors and awards, including a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation, a Whiting Award, and the Rome Prize in Literature. He was Professor of English at the University of South Florida until his passing in 2022.

Reviews

[Ken]

If you're in a mood for nostalgia and yearn for nature poetry like, say, Merwin's or Louise Glück's (who introduces this collection), you might put on your rain coat and take a walk through the late Jay Hopler's Green Squall.

I wrote a full review on my webpage, including two full poems: "The Garden" and "Aubade":

Jay Hopler's Green Squall Awash With Light and Color.

[tee · Rating 4 out of 5]

these are the things that / eat away at life, these constant vibrations / in the web of the unremarkable

i picked this up from the list of yale younger poets prize winners after reading crush, and i'm very pleased that i did, for as miss louise glück says in her introduction to this lovely collection, 'green squall begins and ends in a garden [...] “begins and ends” seem the wrong terms—green squall hardly ever leaves its fertile premises.'

favorite: meditation on a blue vase

[Wendy Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Yale Younger Poet winner
Reminds me of my Florida childhood.
Who might not smile at?

The stars tonight are like tinfoil fleas
on a black rat.

or:
The angel says if I want to be a sucker, that's my business,
But its all about service, not servitude--in this world, you
Either become a monster or you wait on one.

or:
1.
The rain stops
Just long enough to make you think
Of the one day in your whole rotten
Childhood you were happy.
2.
Then, it starts raining again.

aaah lyric cynicism

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant! If Louise Glück approves, who am I to argue? I enjoyed reading the whole collection, but I couldn't give it a full 5-star rating because there were a few that felt like - well - it make me feel like I wanted more and it just wasn't delivering enough for me. But I'm really glad I found this book; it's the first time I've read something by Hopler.

Hopler plays with the ideas of plants and nature with an existentialist touch in his poems. I really enjoyed his playful tone in some of his poems. I usually think that when authors or poets use the word 'fuck' in their work, they were just being lazy about their choice of diction because maybe because their toolbox of literary skills and creativity in general is a bit lacking. But I think Hopler's an exception. He swears gloriously in this collection.

"Or don’t forgive me, what do I care? I am tired of asking for forgiveness; I am tired of being frightened
all the time.
I want to run down the street with a vicious erection, Impaling everything, screaming obscenities
And flapping my arms; fuck the date palms,
Fuck the daisies— " [AND THE SUNFLOWER WEEPS FOR THE SUN, ITS FLOWER]

My favourite ones (and evidently there are quite a lot them) in the collection :

MEDITATION ON BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONY 9
OUT OF THESE WOUNDS, THE MOON WILL RISE
THE GODDESS OF THE PARKING LOT
AND THE SUNFLOWER WEEPS FOR THE SUN, ITS FLOWER
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH WHISKEY AND PISTOL
MÉDITATION MALHEUREUSE
GREEN SQUALL

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love his invention of words on the fly. I'm sure a lot of time and revision went into these poems, but it feels like he couldn't find quite the right word, so made a new one up. "Crooked lizards grassed in yellow shade." "August-walloped trees," "burning through the park's green pelt." "Lean and summer-hungry."

There is a fascination with playing with words, "alcoholic trolley cars made love in glacial lakes," "Look at the garden: dew-swooned and with fat blooms swollen, With shade leaf-faced beneath the lemon trees-"

Descriptions, "Like the sound of the grass lying down." "it was as if the sky had taken off its hinges the last black door of winter and let go," "Moving like a herd of curtains across a pasture of blue glass," "breeze blown blooms of red,"

It is all much better in context. I loved the play with words. Even when the tone is somber, I felt the joy of the words.

[Olivia]

this kind of read like what i imagine spike in his william the bloody era would write if he was actually good at writing poetry. picked it up because the poem “out of these wounds, the moon will rise” is one of my favorite poems ever and still remains that, but none of the other poems blew me away the way that one did. jay hopler is a real force though! unique, biting, sensual, etc.

[Sanpaku · Rating 3 out of 5]

5/10.
Pompous "prose" with a childish undertone.
It improves in between the middle and the end, but it never cames completely out of its criptic (but logorrheic) core.

[Andrijana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh so eloquent, even unorthodox.

[Ksenia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding collection of poetry, immaculately stylized and visually rich. My favourite part about it is how Hopler reinvents language: neverbeforementioned adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs - all turned and twisted into each other, lines broken off just to unexpectedly get picked right after. Playful writing and heavy subjects create a sense of inescapability. I am curious and I am mesmerized at every point of reading, what a lovely treat.

Favourites: in the garden, that light one finds in baby pictures, out of these wounds,the moon will rise, the frustrated angel, of hunger and human freedom, méditation malheureuse, the wildflower field, feast of the ascension,2004.Planting hibiscus;

[Veronica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Green Squall is like no other book of poetry I’ve ever read. Sometimes it breaks my heart, sometimes it makes me laugh so hard I cry. And sometimes this happens over the course of a single poem. It’s amazing. Hopler is truly a master. And if you ever get the chance to see him read, you really have to. He’s one of the best readers I’ve ever seen.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In the Garden" / "Meditation on Ruin" / "Out of These Wounds, the Moon Will Rise" / "Like the Stare of Some Glass-Eyed God" / "Meditation on Beethoven: Symphony 9" / "The Wildflower Field" (both) / "A Book of Common Days" / "Feast of the Ascension, 2004. Planting Hibiscus"

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very imaginative, somewhat self-deprecating, creative and charming. To me.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Green Squall is incredible. I can't remember the last time I was this excited about a book of poetry. I read it like once a week.

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing! Highly recommended.

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly amazing book of poems.

[Eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so completely beautiful. You have to read it.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tactility of sound -- hardness, yup, and "fine collapses" (thus Laura Riding, on Hart Crane) -- refers to the apparent difficulty tensility in an over or under-stressed medium throws up to sense, because when someone says to you something you don't need to remember, it can sound so mellifluous as to register not as sound at all. Whereas: "We dreamt of panthers and hatpins, orchids and ashbins" -- this is all "hooked up". And not just by the glose stanza of this poem (a ten-ner) called "The Howling of the Gods". Hopler likes to "burst" into hyperbole and collapse into sense: "Birds bursting into flame in mid-flight, | That's what I half-expect to see when I cross to the window -- " It didn't happen, even if the speaker was ready for you to believe it. Lotsa action at the level of style, then, and rhetorically chastened to within an inch of its life, Green Squall only partially offers a look at where this poet's work is going.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not as compelling as Abridged History of Rainfall, which I keep coming back to, but definitely worth reading and probably re-reading. Both books make the tropical landscape visceral, even though I've never been to Florida. But not in a lush travel brochure, swaying palm trees way...more in an oppressive, flies buzzing, eyes stinging way. I like That Light One Finds in Baby Pictures, With Both Eyes Closing, and the one about how Wallace Stevens can't convey accurately the brutality of the Florida sun. I like Gluck's introduction too.

[Gina · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was required reading for school. I'm just not into poetry. However, most of the class that are very much interested in poetry really enjoyed it. So, please don't base your decision to pick up this book based on my rating. If you enjoy poetry, I'm sure you will enjoy this book.

[Erik Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

"My days fly from me as though from a murderer.
Can you blame them?
Behind us, the house is empty and quiet as light.

What have I done, Mother,
That I should spend my life
Alone?"

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now here’s a brilliant collection of popping garden poetry. Read it soon is my advice.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

these poems are a bit hit or miss for me, however the good bits are truly, very good.

favorite pieces: meditation on a blue vase and the frustrated angel

[M · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made it about halfway before putting this down with great relief.

[Amal Mathew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like gardens on fire in the evening.

[Isaac Salazar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like I was in a garden. And with the ever-growing climate crisis, the collection’s Florida roots made me feel vitality. However, I felt some disconnections.

[k-os]

"Cloudy or not, here I come—"

[leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

poetry is such a beautiful tradition….

[Sameen Shakya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Green Squall by Jay Hopler is soft, sweet, inoffensive and even tempered. The poems in this book are more lullabies than songs. I, of course, mean that as a compliment.

There's not much more to say about it except that this is a book to read when you want poems to soothe your soul.

[Greta · Rating 2 out of 5]

98% of all the exclamation marks seemed really unnecessary

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lush & evocative poetry set in gardenesque dreamscapes of Florida, served with a bit of wry self-deprecation. I loved every page.