Jay Hopler was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1970. Poet Louise Glück chose Hopler's "Green Squall" for the 2005 Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. Hopler's poems have also appeared in various literary journals, including Boulevard, Colorado Review, The Iowa Review, The New Yorker, and Ploughshares. He holds degrees from the John Hopkins Writing Seminars and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Hopler, who was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, currently lives and teaches at the University of South Florida.

In honor of National Poetry Month, a look at an upcoming event:

7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 2: The Kelly Writers Series presents poet Jay Hopler in the Peeler Auditorium, DePauw University, Greencastle. Free. 765-658-4675 or www.depauw.edu/acad/english/visitingwriters.asp. A sample:

OUT OF THESE WOUNDS, THE MOON WILL RISE

Now that the sun has set and the rain has abated, And every porch light

Maybe we can invent something; I'd like a new

Way of experiencing the world, a way of taking Into myself the single light shining at the center

Of all things without losing the dense, eccentric Planets orbiting around it.

Attentive lover, I suppose--. Too bad that slow,

Wet scorch of orange blossoms floating towards The storm drain is not a vein of stars...we could

Make a wish on one of them; not that we would Wish for anything but the impossible.

("Out of These Wounds, the Moon Will Rise" originally appeared in Pleiades)