Chopson’s poem “A Hollow Earth” originally appeared in the Tennessee English Journal and later became the title poem of Chopson’s first poetry collection A Hollow Earth, published by the Anticus Multicultural Association in Constanta, Romania, in 2017. A Hollow Earth contains fourteen of Chopson’s poems in English along with accompanying translations in Romanian and Crimean Tatar (one the most ancient languages in the world) by Taner Murat.

A Hollow Earth

It wasn’t an intended consequence

of living selfishly or scoffing at God,

but more a slow chipping away

at what appeared to be solidly underfoot —

a connection to the land,

a real book to hold in your hand,

promises that carried weight.

But when I put my ear to the ground,

I heard the frightening echo

of my own voice, and a few others,

like steel balls inside a metal globe —

centrifugal force holding them firm,

then shaken, and fallen, and dropping,

ringing sharply with heavy pings.