The June 11 Second Sunday Poetry Reading at Princeton Makes Artist Cooperative in the Princeton Shopping Center features Plainsboro writer Lavinia Kumar and George Witte of Ridgewood.
Kumar combines a career in chemistry and biology with an interest in ancient medicines, poetry, and the contributions of women to world science and American history. Her most recent book is “Spirited American Women.”
The following sample of her work is included in the soon to be released Tiny Seed Literary Journal’s “Poetry of the Wild Flowers Anthology.”
Early Spring Biking the Lenape Trail
A green aura creeps into bushes. I inhale
this in-between gap-time
flanked by fixed seasons, and resolve life
is too slow to précis,
to enscribe, as youth, middle age, old.
I delight in space, a pause, an expectant
airing –
like a fleeting smell of hanging sheets,
or a night breeze
through open window telling of… whom?
Small white Canada Mayflowers at path’s edge
tempt me to stop.
I see skunk cabbage sprouts and nearby honeysuckle –
soon to perfume my rides –
and, in time, I’ll even come upon a fox and kits.
The business of the woods has only just begun.
Expectant air bewitches.
George Witte has published four books of poems: “An Abundance of Caution”(May 2023), “Does She Have a Name?,” “Deniability,” and “The Apparitioners.” The Madison, New Jersey, born editor-in-chief at St. Martin’s Publishing Group, is also represented in several anthologies, including “the Best American Poetry 2007.”
The following poem appeared in the online quarterly West Trade Review:
Trestle Jumping
Chains barricade the gravel exit ramp
our bankrupt state abandoned years ago.
Unlatched, the way descends to miles of road
invisible on maps, near overgrown,
eroded where low water tunnels through.
Lights out we race pitch lanes between faint lines,
full moon our sightless, disembodied guide.
Only those who don’t fear dying drive. Eyes
wild or cool, no-one eases off or brakes
before the trestle bridge, graffitied span
a palimpsest of wills and testaments.
GODBOY DOA XXRIP
Inebriate but sobered up we strip
to briefs, cinch bungee cords around slick waists
and climb the piton-studded vertical.
Each handhold ratchets up a body’s length
until we reach the overpass, fix rope
around protruding rebar and prepare.
A radio suggests alternatives:
Be like they are…we’ll be able to fly.
Step off and try embracing air, our screams
the secret names of all who sang in kind.
The Second Sunday poetry readings are a project of Princeton Makes, an artists cooperative that comprises 34 local artists who work across a range of artistic genres, and the Princeton-based Ragged Sky, a small independent press specializing in publishing works by overlooked poets.
The reading is set for 4 p.m. at the Princeton Makes shop located in the Princeton Shopping Center, next to Metropolis Hair Salon.
An open mic available to a limited number of audience members interested in reading their original poetry will follow.
For more information on Ragged Sky Press, visit raggedsky.com. For more information on Princeton Makes events, go to www.princetonmakes.com.
