Princeton Makes, a Princeton-based artist cooperative, and Ragged Sky Press, a local publisher focused on poetry, host their monthly Second Sunday Poetry Reading on April 14 at 4 p.m. featuring two New Jersey-based poets. The readings take place at the Princeton Makes store in the Princeton Shopping Center followed by a limited open mic for the first 10 to sign up.
Abigail Ella Johnson is an artist, writer, and editor based in Princeton. Her work spans many mediums, from visual art to poetry. Driven by a deep desire to understand humanity’s ever-evolving place in nature, her work investigates natural phenomena from personal, historical, scientific, social, and cultural perspectives. She seeks to bridge gaps, blurring the lines between the disciplines, the personal and the objective, the natural and the artificial. In addition to local exhibitions, her work has appeared in the likes of One Sentence Poems and the MIT Computer Music Journal.
For more on Johnson’s artwork, see “Tulpehaking Exhibit Offers Two Views on Nature” from the January 31, 2024, issue of U.S. 1. A sample of her poetry is below.
American Insomnia
Sweet sleep, I know you
the way that a blind man is
said to know the moon.
Jim Gould was raised in Hunderton County and attended Delaware Valley Regional High School. He reads regularly at the New Hope Beat poet gatherings, the Writer Roundtable in Sussex and The Platform in Madison, NJ. His work has been published in the Stillwater Review and the Black River Journal, among others. He has written five books of poetry, the latest being “Contemplating the Stump” (2024). A sample of his poetry follows.
Spalted Maple
Spalted — Wood containing blackish irregular lines as a result of fungal decay.
Prized by woodworkers for its unusual decorative grain.
What will you do with me when I am dead?
Will you split me open,
see if any part of me was rotten?
Measure me
as you would chords of wood,
fuel for some common fire.
I tell you now
I will make you work,
I will refuse the axe,
make two men
sweat a year of hours,
go home tired,
contemplate the stump.
Maybe
find insid
my knotted gut,
some stubborn twist
or turn of unexpected art.
Perhaps a bit of curious grain
someday worthy of a table.
Second Sunday Poetry, Princeton Makes (next to Metropolis), Princeton Shopping Center, 301 North Harrison Street, Princeton. Sunday, April 14, 4 p.m. Free.
For more information, contact Princeton Makes coordinator Jim Levine at princetonmakes@gmail.com.
For more information on Ragged Sky Press, visit www.raggedsky.com.
