Cheryl Hopson has a PhD in English from the University of Kentucky. She is an assistant professor of African American Studies in the Department of Diversity and Community Studies at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Cheryl is originally from Southwest Virginia, and is an essayist and poet.

Books by Cheryl Hopson:

About Fragile:

"The poems in Fragile echo a crisis of the spirit: who do we turn to when we can't find our way? 'Crawl inside / Go deeper,' Hopson says as she takes us on a journey of the self in her new chapbook. From the body 'emptied of its wealth' to the tones of Aretha Franklin that call back from years past 'a dark-eyed / black girl/ in a bright yellow shirt/ ...waving into the future,' these poems shape a cathedral of memory as they search and find anchors, and teach us how to reclaim our own stories."
—Julie Brooks Barbour

"With the perfect counter-punch from this voluminous and assured voice, Cheryl Hopson's, Fragile is evocatively muscular and wise, casting a gaze and devouring the small and unctuous moments of life—head-on. Poised with instinct and lucid precision, Hopson takes full possession of her literary prowess, to probe the multi-textured strength of women seeking a cultural and personal identity, 'We are a tribe of lost siblings.' These richly sublime invocations make us listen, make us hear all the riffs and woven voices, even as they ache 'beyond / the kindling of old dried woodenness.' Ceremonial and spiritually resolute, a voice longing to reveal the most forbidden and indelicate territories of the self, 'I will speak and tell a story of lo-sing.' Shining a beam of light on the discordant and intricate interiors, Hopson's lens exquisitely captures the brutal and beautiful nakedness of being alive—Here, a distinctively fresh and affirming voice blooms with necessary epiphanies of the heart and soul."
—Cynthia Atkins