Publications

Orogeny book release party & open mic, Mar. 17 at The Social in Provo, 7pm

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Join Rock Canyon Poets and Speak for Yourself Open Mic for the Orogeny book release party on Monday, March 17, 2025 at 7pm at The Social, 65 N University Ave Downstairs Suite 2, Provo, UT.

The Rock Canyon Poets are proud to release a special 10th anniversary edition of Orogeny, the seventh collection of poems by living poets in Utah, Colorado, and original out-of-state members. Learn more in our interview with RadioACTive on KRCL 90.9 FM here:
Click below to listen to an interview with Rock Canyon Poets, including anthology editor Trish Hopkinson, graphic designer Austin Beckstrom, and Marianne Hales. Hear about the first ten years of Rock Canyon Poets and the poets also shared poems included in the anthology. (The interview starts at 17 minutes into the show.)

Orogeny is the seventh printed anthology by Rock Canyon Poets members and is currently available for pre-order, with print copies available to ship this spring. Cost is $10 plus shipping. 

Click here to pre-order

Editor’s Forward

I am honored to present you with our special 10th anniversary edition of Orogeny, Volume 7. In the last ten years, Rock Canyon Poets have produced exceptional work, performed at several events, met monthly to encourage and inspire each other, welcomed new members, and mourned the loss of beloved members Darin Whittaker and Colin Douglas. Our members continue to amaze me with their kindness towards each other and their commitment to the literary arts. The themes in this edition reflect not only the diversity of our members, but their experiences, beliefs, and their unwavering empathy for the human condition. It is a privilege to witness the words of these poets. 

—Trish Hopkinson, Co-founder/Editor, Rock Canyon Poets

You can sample previously published poems included in the anthology below:

Praise for Orogeny: Volume 7

In “Conjure,” by Felice Austin, one of the beautiful poems in this powerful new anthology, the speaker of the poem remembers “Always turning to / the match strike sucking sound of fire coming alive / by swallowing the dark.” In the resultant light, what do we see, what do we feel? Only everything: the precise naming of things, the shift of memory and feeling, the terrible losses, the evidence of love, the taking back of the premises on which we have built our lives, and building them anew. A book like this is a way to conjure, to spell things fresh. Open its covers and listen to its many voices.

—Lisa Bickmore, Utah Poet Laureate and author of Ephemerist

Arising in a particularly salty part of the Great American Desert, The Rock Canyon Poets look into the fundamental landscape to question accepted homogeneities, and find them crumbling rapidly. These poems observe and examine evolving scenes of love, family, and community in the crucible that is twenty-first century Utah, USA, and sees the world reimagined. The fact that this group of writers has lasted long enough to collaborate on a 7th anthology is a testament to the power of small diverse groups of humans who come together with the common urge – to write – and thus, find ways to move through the modern wilderness with increasing grace. Picking up the frayed pieces of their lives these poets collectively decide that, as one of the prime movers of the group, Trish Hopkinson, says, “When the garden grows poison, make pie.”

—Danny Rosen, Lithic Press

In “Breadcrumbs,” one of the poems in this anthology, Stacy Julin writes, “A blue umbrella / from my aunt’s favorite drink, / a smooth purple rock / from the dirt / up the canyon. / My painted heart locket on a silver chain, / scattered through drawers, / boxes of our house.” To me, those lines are like a metaphor for this whole book. It isn’t just a box full of 49 poems. It’s more like a home—with a poem in a drawer here, a poem like a switched-on lamp over there, a hurt poem talking to her friend on the phone, another poem cooking in the kitchen, a poem that smells like tangerines, a poem in place of the TV news, poems turning and falling from November limbs or coloring the Wasatch Mountains out the window, all coming together like a note on the table to remind us what to remember.

—Rob Carney, author of The Book of Drought

This well-sequenced volume carries us down a river of bright sensation: the poems are streaked with visual beauty, sensual grasp, tricky faith and saving disillusion. Violence and shelter. Along the way: birth, un-birth; naming, renaming. Intimate artifacts of death. Fallen peaches, wayward seedlings, and you’ll never stop seeing tangerines. Settle into your favorite reading place and savor the seventh Orogeny. Twice and again. Gorgeous.

—Karin Anderson, author of What Falls Away and (forthcoming 2025) Things I Didn’t Do 

About Rock Canyon Poets

Rock Canyon Poets is a regional poetry group boasting a diverse membership, ranging from 18 to 70+ years in age with many backgrounds–including literary journal founders, editors, ex-military, business professionals, a playwright, and a periodontist. Individually, they have received several awards and been published in magazines, anthologies, journals, chapbooks, and full-length books of poetry. Rock Canyon Poets offer poetry with the tactile clarity of tin-can messages through fuzzy strings to the ears of an audience. These poems are tumbleweeds in semi-truck grills. They get stuck in your teeth, build bridges of spun sugar, and make it possible to mount a camel without a sturdy ladder.

Co-founded by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen and Trish Hopkinson in January, 2015, Rock Canyon Poets was established to develop camaraderie among Utah Valley poets, provide consistent workshopping and reading opportunities, and promote the disciplined study of writing poetry as a serious art form. In recent years, the group has expanded to include western Colorado poets, as well as original, out-of-state member poets. Members meet twice a month virtually to inspire each other and workshop poems. Membership is by invitation or portfolio submission only.

For more information, contact the Rock Canyon Poets, rockcanyonpoets@gmail.com.

Rock Canyon Poets featured on KRCL for the new Orogeny anthology!

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Click below to listen to an interview with Rock Canyon Poets, including anthology editor Trish Hopkinson, graphic designer Austin Beckstrom, and Marianne Hales. Hear about the first ten years of Rock Canyon Poets and the poets also shared poems included in the anthology. (The interview starts at 17 minutes into the show.)

10th Anniversary Orogeny anthology now available for pre-order!

The Rock Canyon Poets are proud to release a special 10th anniversary edition of Orogeny, the seventh collection of poems by living poets in Utah, Colorado, and original out-of-state members. Tune into RadioACTive on KRCL 90.9 FM at 6pm, Monday February 3 at 6pm for an interview with Rock Canyon Poets, including anthology editor Trish Hopkinson, graphic designer Austin Beckstrom, and Marianne Hales. Hear about the first ten years of Rock Canyon Poets and the poets will also share poems included in the anthology. Live stream here.

Orogeny is the seventh printed anthology by Rock Canyon Poets members and is currently available for pre-order, with print copies available to ship this spring. Cost is $10 plus shipping. 

Click here to pre-order

Editor’s Forward

I am honored to present you with our special 10th anniversary edition of Orogeny, Volume 7. In the last ten years, Rock Canyon Poets have produced exceptional work, performed at several events, met monthly to encourage and inspire each other, welcomed new members, and mourned the loss of beloved members Darin Whittaker and Colin Douglas. Our members continue to amaze me with their kindness towards each other and their commitment to the literary arts. The themes in this edition reflect not only the diversity of our members, but their experiences, beliefs, and their unwavering empathy for the human condition. It is a privilege to witness the words of these poets. 

—Trish Hopkinson, Co-founder/Editor, Rock Canyon Poets

You can sample previously published poems included in the anthology below:

Praise for Orogeny: Volume 7

In “Conjure,” by Felice Austin, one of the beautiful poems in this powerful new anthology, the speaker of the poem remembers “Always turning to / the match strike sucking sound of fire coming alive / by swallowing the dark.” In the resultant light, what do we see, what do we feel? Only everything: the precise naming of things, the shift of memory and feeling, the terrible losses, the evidence of love, the taking back of the premises on which we have built our lives, and building them anew. A book like this is a way to conjure, to spell things fresh. Open its covers and listen to its many voices.

—Lisa Bickmore, Utah Poet Laureate and author of Ephemerist

Arising in a particularly salty part of the Great American Desert, The Rock Canyon Poets look into the fundamental landscape to question accepted homogeneities, and find them crumbling rapidly. These poems observe and examine evolving scenes of love, family, and community in the crucible that is twenty-first century Utah, USA, and sees the world reimagined. The fact that this group of writers has lasted long enough to collaborate on a 7th anthology is a testament to the power of small diverse groups of humans who come together with the common urge – to write – and thus, find ways to move through the modern wilderness with increasing grace. Picking up the frayed pieces of their lives these poets collectively decide that, as one of the prime movers of the group, Trish Hopkinson, says, “When the garden grows poison, make pie.”

—Danny Rosen, Lithic Press

In “Breadcrumbs,” one of the poems in this anthology, Stacy Julin writes, “A blue umbrella / from my aunt’s favorite drink, / a smooth purple rock / from the dirt / up the canyon. / My painted heart locket on a silver chain, / scattered through drawers, / boxes of our house.” To me, those lines are like a metaphor for this whole book. It isn’t just a box full of 49 poems. It’s more like a home—with a poem in a drawer here, a poem like a switched-on lamp over there, a hurt poem talking to her friend on the phone, another poem cooking in the kitchen, a poem that smells like tangerines, a poem in place of the TV news, poems turning and falling from November limbs or coloring the Wasatch Mountains out the window, all coming together like a note on the table to remind us what to remember.

—Rob Carney, author of The Book of Drought

This well-sequenced volume carries us down a river of bright sensation: the poems are streaked with visual beauty, sensual grasp, tricky faith and saving disillusion. Violence and shelter. Along the way: birth, un-birth; naming, renaming. Intimate artifacts of death. Fallen peaches, wayward seedlings, and you’ll never stop seeing tangerines. Settle into your favorite reading place and savor the seventh Orogeny. Twice and again. Gorgeous.

—Karin Anderson, author of What Falls Away and (forthcoming 2025) Things I Didn’t Do 

About Rock Canyon Poets

Rock Canyon Poets is a regional poetry group boasting a diverse membership, ranging from 18 to 70+ years in age with many backgrounds–including literary journal founders, editors, ex-military, business professionals, a playwright, and a periodontist. Individually, they have received several awards and been published in magazines, anthologies, journals, chapbooks, and full-length books of poetry. Rock Canyon Poets offer poetry with the tactile clarity of tin-can messages through fuzzy strings to the ears of an audience. These poems are tumbleweeds in semi-truck grills. They get stuck in your teeth, build bridges of spun sugar, and make it possible to mount a camel without a sturdy ladder.

Co-founded by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen and Trish Hopkinson in January, 2015, Rock Canyon Poets was established to develop camaraderie among Utah Valley poets, provide consistent workshopping and reading opportunities, and promote the disciplined study of writing poetry as a serious art form. In recent years, the group has expanded to include western Colorado poets, as well as original, out-of-state member poets. Members meet twice a month virtually to inspire each other and workshop poems. Membership is by invitation or portfolio submission only.

For more information, contact the Rock Canyon Poets, rockcanyonpoets@gmail.com.

10th Anniversary Orogeny anthology now available for pre-order!

/ trishhopkinsonpoet / 1 Comment

The Rock Canyon Poets are proud to release a special 10th anniversary edition of Orogeny, the seventh collection of poems by living poets in Utah, Colorado, and original out-of-state members. Tune into RadioACTive on KRCL 90.9 FM at 6pm, Monday February 3 at 6pm for an interview with Rock Canyon Poets, including anthology editor Trish Hopkinson, graphic designer Austin Beckstrom, and Marianne Hales. Hear about the first ten years of Rock Canyon Poets and the poets will also share poems included in the anthology. Live stream here.

Orogeny is the seventh printed anthology by Rock Canyon Poets members and is currently available for pre-order, with print copies available to ship this spring. Cost is $10 plus shipping. 

Click here to pre-order

Editor’s Forward

I am honored to present you with our special 10th anniversary edition of Orogeny, Volume 7. In the last ten years, Rock Canyon Poets have produced exceptional work, performed at several events, met monthly to encourage and inspire each other, welcomed new members, and mourned the loss of beloved members Darin Whittaker and Colin Douglas. Our members continue to amaze me with their kindness towards each other and their commitment to the literary arts. The themes in this edition reflect not only the diversity of our members, but their experiences, beliefs, and their unwavering empathy for the human condition. It is a privilege to witness the words of these poets. 

—Trish Hopkinson, Co-founder/Editor, Rock Canyon Poets

You can sample previously published poems included in the anthology below:

Praise for Orogeny: Volume 7

In “Conjure,” by Felice Austin, one of the beautiful poems in this powerful new anthology, the speaker of the poem remembers “Always turning to / the match strike sucking sound of fire coming alive / by swallowing the dark.” In the resultant light, what do we see, what do we feel? Only everything: the precise naming of things, the shift of memory and feeling, the terrible losses, the evidence of love, the taking back of the premises on which we have built our lives, and building them anew. A book like this is a way to conjure, to spell things fresh. Open its covers and listen to its many voices.

—Lisa Bickmore, Utah Poet Laureate and author of Ephemerist

Arising in a particularly salty part of the Great American Desert, The Rock Canyon Poets look into the fundamental landscape to question accepted homogeneities, and find them crumbling rapidly. These poems observe and examine evolving scenes of love, family, and community in the crucible that is twenty-first century Utah, USA, and sees the world reimagined. The fact that this group of writers has lasted long enough to collaborate on a 7th anthology is a testament to the power of small diverse groups of humans who come together with the common urge – to write – and thus, find ways to move through the modern wilderness with increasing grace. Picking up the frayed pieces of their lives these poets collectively decide that, as one of the prime movers of the group, Trish Hopkinson, says, “When the garden grows poison, make pie.”

—Danny Rosen, Lithic Press

In “Breadcrumbs,” one of the poems in this anthology, Stacy Julin writes, “A blue umbrella / from my aunt’s favorite drink, / a smooth purple rock / from the dirt / up the canyon. / My painted heart locket on a silver chain, / scattered through drawers, / boxes of our house.” To me, those lines are like a metaphor for this whole book. It isn’t just a box full of 49 poems. It’s more like a home—with a poem in a drawer here, a poem like a switched-on lamp over there, a hurt poem talking to her friend on the phone, another poem cooking in the kitchen, a poem that smells like tangerines, a poem in place of the TV news, poems turning and falling from November limbs or coloring the Wasatch Mountains out the window, all coming together like a note on the table to remind us what to remember.

—Rob Carney, author of The Book of Drought

This well-sequenced volume carries us down a river of bright sensation: the poems are streaked with visual beauty, sensual grasp, tricky faith and saving disillusion. Violence and shelter. Along the way: birth, un-birth; naming, renaming. Intimate artifacts of death. Fallen peaches, wayward seedlings, and you’ll never stop seeing tangerines. Settle into your favorite reading place and savor the seventh Orogeny. Twice and again. Gorgeous.

—Karin Anderson, author of What Falls Away and (forthcoming 2025) Things I Didn’t Do 

About Rock Canyon Poets

Rock Canyon Poets is a regional poetry group boasting a diverse membership, ranging from 18 to 70+ years in age with many backgrounds–including literary journal founders, editors, ex-military, business professionals, a playwright, and a periodontist. Individually, they have received several awards and been published in magazines, anthologies, journals, chapbooks, and full-length books of poetry. Rock Canyon Poets offer poetry with the tactile clarity of tin-can messages through fuzzy strings to the ears of an audience. These poems are tumbleweeds in semi-truck grills. They get stuck in your teeth, build bridges of spun sugar, and make it possible to mount a camel without a sturdy ladder.

Co-founded by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen and Trish Hopkinson in January, 2015, Rock Canyon Poets was established to develop camaraderie among Utah Valley poets, provide consistent workshopping and reading opportunities, and promote the disciplined study of writing poetry as a serious art form. In recent years, the group has expanded to include western Colorado poets, as well as original, out-of-state member poets. Members meet twice a month virtually to inspire each other and workshop poems. Membership is by invitation or portfolio submission only.

For more information, contact the Rock Canyon Poets, rockcanyonpoets@gmail.com.

Utah Writers Offer New Views of State’s 125th Anniversary in UTAH @ 125

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Twenty-two writers. Twenty-two original views of Utah. Collected as Utah @ 125, these works of flash nonfiction are part of Thrive125, a far-ranging cultural initiative celebrating the state’s 125th anniversary.

What: Utah @ 125, a collection of new 125-word nonfiction pieces by Utah writers

When: Published February 2021

Where: Available at thrive125.utah.gov/utah-at-125

The flash nonfiction pieces in Utah @ 125, each just 125 words long, were commissioned from writers ranging from Utah Poet Laureate Paisley Rekdal, a University of Utah professor, to Lance Larsen, a former state poet laureate and Brigham Young University professor, and Tayler Fang, a recent Logan High School graduate, who served as 2019-2020’s National Student Poet of the West.

Other writers include slam poets, playwrights, nature writers, activists and novelists, based in Vernal, Cedar City, Provo, West Valley City, Eagle Mountain, Logan and Salt Lake City. These short-short essays describe a Bonneville Trail hike on the winter solstice, the anchoring feeling of watching quails march across a front yard, extraordinary views from on top and inside the artworks of “Spiral Jetty” and “Sun Tunnels,” and what it means to grow up in a town like Beaver.

The Utah Department of Heritage & Arts published Utah @ 125, a new digital literary chapbook, as part of Thrive125. The ambitious statehood celebration, which was launched Jan. 4 with a TV broadcast hosted by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson and featuring Utah performing artists, will continue throughout the year.

Along with the literary chapbook, the Thrive125 initiative includes: a database of Utah’s 1896 architecture; “Becoming Utah: A Peoples’ Journey,” a short educational film with curriculum resources about Utah’s history; a One Book, One Utah state library book club highlighting Craig Child’s “Virga & Bone”; a “Voices: Discord and Harmony in 1896” digital exhibit; plus historical and cultural panels, such as “Wintertime Native American Tales”; and “Coming Together: How Utah Became the Union’s 45th Star,” an exhibition at the Utah State Capitol.

Inspired, Vol. 6 Poetry Anthology now available!

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Couldn’t be more proud of our incredible talented community poets here in Utah! I am honored to have edited and released this anthology of Self-Portrait poems earlier this week. Special thanks to our designer Austin Beckstrom who always does such an incredible job! He loves book design, so if you’re needing an incredible designer for an affordable rate, definitely check him out. Also, HUGE thanks to

Utah Humanities for their support of Rock Canyon Poets.
You can find all our anthologies here:
Support living poets!

SOUND, SYMBOLISM & METER: UTAH POETRY – ROCK CANYON POETS featured in SLUG MAGAZINE

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Rock Canyon Poets Inspired anthology release party and open mic was featured in SLUG Magazine’s special local literary issue! You can pick up your own print copy of December’s special issue across Utah at news stands. Special thanks to reporter Tyson Call and Kathy Zhou for covering our event and to our sponsors who made the workshops and poetry book possible: Pioneer Book and the Utah Humanities Council in conjunction with their Book Festival.

Read the complete article here:

SOUND, SYMBOLISM & METER: UTAH POETRY – ROCK CANYON POETS

Pick up your own copy of Inspired for just $5 and check out our first and second issues of Orogeny in our Poetry Store here.

Want to know more about Provo poetry? Follow our website, Facebook, or Twitter. Open mic poetry readings happen the second Tuesday of every month at Pioneer Book. Click here for more information.

Inspired: Volume 2 – a community poetry writing experience available online for only $5

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Our second annual issue of community poetry is now available online! Support local poets and see what they are writing right here in Utah County. Click here to get your very own copy! All proceeds continue to fund local poetry projects.
 
Huge thanks to all our participating poets, including Austin Beckstrom, Skye Caden, Lisa Connors, Steven Duncan, Paul Francis, Claire Gammon, Trish Hopkinson, Craig McClanahan, Logan Olsen, Robert K. Rowberry, Shelby Slade, Joshua P. Sorensen, Amanda Steele, and Darin Whittaker.
 
inspired-screen-shot-captureMemories are the stuff from which lives are sewn, attached to us like buttons and grade school friendships, like seasons of joy, sadness, loss, and love. In our second year of the Inspired workshops, we aimed to bring a community together, to memorialize the turns in our lives—those moments that become components of us in ways that nearly seem tangible—the flavor of Dr. Pepper, pigments of the sky, textures of childhood, shadows of our elders, and regrets that haunt. These poems are more than language or printed paper. These poems are pieces of ourselves; and poems don’t forget.