“To a Woman with a Piano” was the first poem published by Vincent J. Kopp, MD. It appeared in 1975 in Cellar Door, the undergraduate literary magazine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that he helped found in 1972. A “Special student” at the time it was published, he was taking courses required to enter medical school that he had neglected to take as an English and religion major three years earlier. He went on to share the Jesse Rehder Prize for poetry at UNC that same year with Roxanne Henderson, the better poet. Throughout medical school, residency training, and private and academic practice in two specialties, Kopp maintained an interest in poetry, not as a tool for healing, but as an art form that did not require a studio space. As a faculty member at UNC School of Medicine, he was the founding advisor for iris, the medical community's first literary and art magazine. While the publication of poetry is nice, it is something he has sought only occasionally and out of proportion to the number of poems he actually has in his files and on his desk in various stages of completion and revision.
Participation at the 2016 West End Poetry Festival
- Healing and Poetry | Saturday, October 15 | 3:00 to 4:15 pm | Carrboro Century Center
- For a full schedule and descriptions of all sessions, see the festival schedule.
