 His writing career began in 1954 with the publication of "The Four and Other Poems"; the plays, "The Blood of a Family" (1957), "Fall of a Chief" (1965), "The Onliest Fisherman" (1967), and "Spawning of Eel" (1968), rewritten as "Sala and The Long Vacation".In 1976 the Government of Guyana published two companion collections of poetry, "The Madwoman of Papine", which contained mainly his secular poems ranging over his Caribbean experiences, and "The Friend", which contained his religious and philosophical poems, written in the process of discovering the teachings of the Sufis.Hopkinson was also active in the "Anira" literary group, which operated out of the home of Martin Carter's mother and included Carter, Sydney Singh, Jan Carew, Milton Vishnu Williams and others.