Photo by Emily Counsil
The organization Humanities Kansas recently released a chapbook featuring 11 new poems, titled Wild Words. These poems draw inspiration from the native plants and wildflowers of the state and work to “celebrate the innate relationship Kansans have with the prairie.”
Aubrey Streit Krug, Director of the Perennial Cultures Lab at The Land Institute, contributed to this publication with her poem Road Cut. Her poem centers on the prairie plant antelope horn milkweed (Asclepias asperula), which attracts pollinators and provides spring forage for Monarch caterpillars.
During the summer of 2023, Humanities Kansas is partnering with Kansas cultural organizations to distribute free copies of this original poetry chapbook within their communities.
Click here to view Wild Words, which is available for free download through September 12, 2023. You can also use the link on this page to request a physical copy.
“This collection of poems is an invitation to listen to the call of native plants in Kansas, to the specific places where we make our homes and live in community with many human and other-than-human co-inhabitants.” — Megan Kaminski, editor of Wild Words
Aubrey Streit Krug
Road Cut
highway through the west hump reveals green antelope horn
on a wash of bone
stop to see
creases, accretions, limestone spring hues
that hint nowhere else will do
I carry a shard of memory, a lens
each carpenter bee perches amid arcs of burgundy stars on a globe
slow to sense
these footfalls
along the route of blade
and bloom, glory bound in relief