“In Glass Closet, Robert Quintana Hopkins unapologetically writes about family secrets, coming out and living in between borders among other truths that many of us can relate to. He urges us to make peace with our personal and collective histories as we make choices about who we want to be. In the preface he writes, “An alternative exists – freedom.” In choosing that freedom he makes himself vulnerable, sharing moments of pain, laughter, confusion and shame as he writes new self narratives and invites us to heal as he does throughout his text. In every poem I saw bits of myself. His poetry provided a language to name my own processes of transformation. It reminded me that I don’t have to be silent and that I don’t have to forget in order to survive.”
— EDDY F. ALVAREZ, INSTRUCTOR, CHICANA AND CHICANO STUDIES, UC SANTA BARBARA
“Robert Quintana Hopkins is a master of capturing space and time, depth of emotion, story-telling, and making the personal political. This treasure of a collection reveals how the lines of race, gender, sexual orientation, poverty, and injustice effect all of us, personally, socially, politically and economically. Each poem guides the reader deeper and deeper into the soul of his pain, outrages, anger, past, joys, loves and lessons. “Glass Closet” truly has far-reaching potential for social change. Universities, bookstores and social organizations must pay attention to this book.”
— WENDY MILLSTINE, AUTHOR OF THE FIVE GOOD MINUTES SERIES
“Glass Closet gives voice to those who continue to sit at the margins. Only by reading and writing about identities and the relationship of multiple identities to democracy and human rights can we help change the world.”
— ANDREA Y. SIMPSON, PH.D., AUTHOR OF TIE THAT BINDS
“Robert Quintana Hopkins, a self described ‘border crosser,’ invests these powerful words with memory, loss and love.”
— ALAN E. MILLER, POET AND TEACHER
“Robert has identified all of us. He has had the screaming audacity to take the cover off us all. This young man is ready for change.”
— REVEREND DR. ELOUISE OLIVER, EAST BAY CHURCH OF RELIGIOUS SCIENCE
“This gem of poetry is honest, refreshing and delves into truths of the human experience. Each poem expresses truth, experience and a level of gratitude that edifies and encourages others to press their way through any circumstance.”
— REGINA A. BRADFORD TARDY, AUTHOR OF A MUSTARD SEED OF FAITH
“Rarely are we seen and even more rarely are we heard. Robert Quintana Hopkins’ Glass Closet does more than take the hinges off of the lives of our culture, it invites you to come into a world that is sometimes beautiful and at others tragic.”
— TOBY THOMPKINS, AUTHOR OF THE REAL LIVES OF STRONG BLACK WOMEN
“In this brave and hopeful testimony, Quintana Hopkins exposes the shame associated with the choices we make, offering a redemptive exhale for all that we hold hostage as unspeakable, that everybody already knows. A courageous debut that speaks to how universally liberating ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ can be.”
