Inside the Smile sees short-story author, Tamsin Hopkins, finding her voice as a wry, accomplished poet. In a debut pamphlet that punches way above its weight, Hopkins examines family relationships, the role of women, unusual landscape and surreal experience with a deft wit and scallop-sharp language.
Juanita changes her destiny
I will not follow to the mountain
to drink and die and freeze for them.
I will walk
until I find the dunes
then dig a hollow
until it falls on me.
I will sleep there, foetal,
my life a libation to the sands.
I will not rot or stink and putrefy,
but will desiccate, a desert sacrifice,
with twisted cheeks, snarling teeth,
tattoos and patchy orange hair
and they will wonder why
I needed nothing with me in my afterlife.
Author biography
