(PRINCETON, NJ) -- Princeton Makes, a Princeton-based artist cooperative, and Ragged Sky Press, a local publisher focused on poetry, will host a Second Sunday Poetry Reading on Sunday, July 10 at 4:00pm at the Princeton Makes store in the Princeton Shopping Center.  The reading will feature Steve Nolan and Lew Maltby. Their readings will be followed by an open mic available to up to 10 audience members who would like to read their original poetry.  

Steve Nolan spent 30 years in the military and 25 years as a mental health professional. He has published in numerous journals and his poetry was featured on National Public Radio, Morning Edition, upon his return from Afghanistan in 2007. He is the author of Go Deep (with NJ DeVico), Base Camp: Poems, and American Carnage: An Officer’s Duty to Warn. His work reflects his commitment to social justice.

Lew Maltby is an unusual poet. He has been a truck driver, factory worker, trial lawyer, model, logger, and soldier. All these experiences find voice in his poetry. His images include “gazing at a meteor shower of tracers through barbed wire” while crawling through a minefield to “bodies colliding like snowflakes under the Northern Lights” with a lover in Iceland. His first chapbook, Smiling Axes, was published by Kelsay Press in 2019.

Princeton Makes is a cooperative comprised of 32 local artists who work across a range of artistic genres, including painting, drawing, stained glass, sculpture, textiles, and jewelry. Customers will be able to support local artists by shopping for a wide variety of art, including large paintings, prints, custom-made greeting cards, stained glass lamps and window hangings, jewelry in a variety of designs and patterns, and more.  

Ragged Sky is a small, highly selective cooperative press.  We work with our authors closely.  Authors retain copyright and we use our experience and professional resources to support the author’s work through the editing, production, and design process.  Ragged Sky Press has historically focused on mature voices, overlooked poets, and women's perspectives.