Notes on “Edward Hopper Never Painted Opioids and Suicide"
by Andreea Ceplinschi
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By Will Sheets
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Edward Hopper’s art often explores the theme of loneliness. But what makes Hopper’s works so powerful is the surreal cleanliness of their blocky colors and neat compositions, elements that create a striking disconnect between peacefulness and loneliness. “Edward Hopper Never Painted Opioids and Suicide” blooms out of this disconnect. The poem’s oscillation between the picturesque and the tragic only sharpens this disconnect, creating a chasm between the Cape Cod of friendly neighbors who “never lock their doors” and the Cape Cod of “flies crawling over milky retinas.” The carefully constructed language of the piece contributes to its unique bifurcated tone. Lines like “and morning dawns like an act of violence” capture both the peace and loneliness of the poem’s setting. Every space between lines, words, and fragments is placed with intent, creating an intricate portrait of grief, addiction, isolation, and the veneer of near-perfect calm that rests gently atop it all. ​​
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Notes on “Edward Hopper Never Painted Opioids and Suicide"
by Andreea Ceplinschi
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This poem is an incredible study of distance, stillness, and light, like many of Hopper's paintings. I am impressed by how much the title adds to the poem, and how slowly the scenes wrap into each other, inviting the reader to imagine and empathize. The quiet, bruise-colored peace of the sea and sky conveys a sense that there is no escape from the "soundless and lonely" violence and sadness touching every corner of America, like the opioid crisis has. In this poem, tragedy feels horribly cyclical, and lines like "flies crawling over milky retinas" become beautiful, while the sea air pushes "into another bedroom crime scene."​ The specificity in the poem, like neighbors bringing out recycling, can exist only within immensity. It captures (like Hopper, but with smartphones to boot) the tension between staged, nondescript human figures disconnected from each other and from the world around them. The mildness of their actions is belied by the drama, surrender, and despondency that nature and shadows show as imminent. I will borrow a sentence from Yale University Art Gallery: "Like Hopper’s most arresting images, this scene seems to be realistic, abstract, and surrealistic all at once."
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