Albert Wisner Public Library will host book launch for poet Mary Makofske on Dec. 1

Warwick — Mary Makofske will read and discuss poems from her new book, “Traction,” winner of the Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press (Ashland University), on Thursday, Dec. 1, at 6:30 p.m. at the Albert Wisner Public Library. Makofske’s poems have appeared in Poetry, Mississippi Review, Poetry East, North American Review, Calyx and other journals and in several anthologies. Individual poems have won the Robert Penn Warren Poetry Prize, the Lullwater Review Prize, the Iowa Woman Prize and The Spoon River Poetry Review Prize. Her other books are “The Disappearance of Gargoyles” and “Eating Nasturtiums,” a winner of the Flume Press Chapbook Award. Before her retirement in 2006, she was an assistant professor of English at SUNY Orange To register for this program, visit www.albertwisnerlibrary.org or call 986-1047 ext. 3. Like Peter Rabbit, Whom He Much Admires By Mary Makofske My grandson fits inside the hollow, head pressed against its roof, legs tucked inside the cage of roots. As if the pine has cast a spell to calm his shouts, the gallop that propelled him past the shore of Dyer Pond this morning of late summer, too cold to swim, too cold to wade in after frogs, he grows so quiet, touching bark as if his hands could speak, the tree could listen. We speak in whispers of the dangers he’s escaped, his love of hiding, all the warnings we have given when his feet have flown him far beyond our sight and voices. Cradled and snug, he presses ear to earth, sap dripping on his hair to leave a kiss so firm we cannot wash it out.