Read the poem ‘Shipbuilding,’ by Alice Hotopp

In this week’s poem, by Alice Hotopp, the speaker considers the stalwart construction and potential of ships, then of her own form. I love this poem’s imaginative, meditative imagery of boats and horizons, and how its final question brings us back to one human body navigating sea, world, and beyond.

Alice Hotopp’s work has appeared in Spire: The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability, Like the Wind, Five Minutes, the anthology Rivers of Ink: Literary Reflections on the Penobscot, and elsewhere. She is a Bangor-based writer and ecologist. Her writing explores the intersections of science, beauty, and loss.

Shipbuilding

The tide swells.
In the harbor, all the boats
swing to face the open
ocean, not a hint

of fear in their eyes
as they stare down
that wall where

horizons are nothing
but a smear where watery
sky meets watery sea.

Where will they race to
when their anchors rust loose?

I study curved
hulls, jutted prows,
sweeping sails.

How might I reshape
my bones, restring my fibers,
to lean so bravely into the abyss?

– Alice Hotopp

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. DEEP WATER: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “The Finish,” ©2025 by Alice Hotopp, appears by permission of the author.

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