poems for the sound of the sky before thunder is a collection that tiptoes the infinitely blurred lines between hurting, hoping, & healing. It speaks of sleepless nights & softened tongues, telling a story dreaming & bone-bright & out of focus in the rain. These poems are only as much for losing as they are for finding, only as much for despair as they are for the light scattered within it, only as much for leaving as they are for finally coming home. “Topaz Winters writes of the many different kinds of longing in the tenderest, most stunning ways. She longs for quiet, for girlhood, for the chance to forget and the chance to remember. This collection feels like home for so many that want and bloom in the same way that Topaz does—it’s comforting, in that we have someone describing what we may have never had the words for. poems for the sound of the sky before thunder gives the reader permission to try and find beauty even in the ugliest parts of their life. Chances like that are always opportune.” —Lyd Havens, author of I Gave Birth to All the Ghosts Here
Author
I am an internationally-award winning & critically-acclaimed poet, essayist, editor, performer, artist, & scholar. I’m the author of So, Stranger (Button Poetry 2022), Portrait of My Body as a Crime I’m Still Committing (2019), & poems for the sound of the sky before thunder (Math Paper Press 2017), & the founder & editor-in-chief of the publishing house & literary journal Half Mystic. My peer-reviewed research on poetry & queerness in Singapore is published in the Journal of Homosexuality, & is taught at the University of Southern California’s doctorate programme in educational leadership. My poetry, essays, & art have been published in & featured by venues from The Straits Times to American Banker to the Singapore Writers Festival to the Center for Fiction to the Academy of American Poets. I’ve traveled across the world teaching & performing poetry, & my photography & performance art have been exhibited in Singapore & the United States. In 2017 I gave the TEDx talk Healing Is a Verb. I’m the writer & star of the critically-acclaimed short film SUPERNOVA (recipient of awards from the Newark International, Across Asia Youth, Laurie Nelson, My Rode Reel, Singapore International Student, & CINE Golden Eagle Film Festivals), & from 2015 to 2022 I wrote the annual column Silver-Tipped Swallow for Half Mystic Journal. I’m 23 years old, & I study English Literature, Creative Writing, Italian, & Visual Art at Princeton University. I live between Singapore & Brooklyn. I like used bookstores, rosé, honeybees, classic rock, red lipstick, & the sea.
