Jigging on the Page by Anne Hopkinson

Poem title: Jigging on the page Poet name: Anne Hopkinson Poem: Eyes shut, you cast out a line for the right word, let memory bait sink deeper, troll the seabed brain for that swim-past word. Others flit and shimmer, a school of synonyms swim around an idea dangling on a filament. Drift. Jig it a bit, one nears the hook but veers away. Wait. Let the mind float away on a glassy sea. Wait. A silver flicker in the deep green, the word swishes out of reach. You want to pull it to the surface, feel its weight on the end of your line, reel it in, net that one word. Drift. Jig it a bit. Wait for the word that bites. End of Poem. Credits and Bio: Copyright © Anne Hopkinson Anne Hopkinson writes poetry, fiction, and non-fiction from her home in Victoria. She is a retired teacher, nature lover, and water rat. She is president of Planet Earth Poetry, a reading series of 26 years in Victoria. She won the Victoria Writer’s Society Creative Non-/fiction Contest in 2018, and The Canadian Stories Poetry Prize for 2019. Her work was short-listed for the BC Federation of Writers Poetry Prize in 2019, and in the FBCW BC and Yukon short fiction prize in 2020. Most recently she won the Emily Carr Poetry contest in December 2021.