ADDING C.K. WILLIAMS TO THE POETRY TRAIL: At the dedication ceremony for the C.K. Williams poem, “Garden,” recently added to the Scott and Hella McVay Poetry Trail at D&R Greenway Land Trust, from left — D&R Greenway Board Chair Phyllis Marchand, Gary Mailman, Jessie Williams-Burns, Catherine Mauger, Robbie Namy, Scott McVay, Lynn Williams, Michael Burns, Jed Williams, Elaine Pagels.

A new addition to the Scott and Hella McVay Poetry Trail, “Garden” by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet C.K. Williams (1936-2015), has been dedicated. Published in the collection Vigil (1997), the poem was written from le Parc de Bagatelle, in Neuilly, France, but the place “whose serenity lifts and enfolds me, as a swirl of breeze lifts the leaves and enfolds them” could also describe the trail that begins behind D&R Greenway Land Trust’s Johnson Education Center off Rosedale Road. There are poems posted by, among others, Shakespeare, John Clare, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and poets associated with Princeton, including W.S. Merwin, Gerald Stern, Paul Muldoon, and Galway Kinnell.

A Princeton professor emeritus, C.K. Williams and his French-born wife, Catherine Mauger, divided their time between Hopewell and Normandy, France. While in New Jersey, they frequently visited Greenway Meadows and the Poetry Trail with their dog, Bwindi. “Garden” was selected for the trail by Ms. Mauger and her son, Jed. “It was a poem I loved, it was the right length and about the right thing,” said Ms. Mauger. “He wrote many poems about nature, about storms and trees, but this one has such a peace in it. It’s a lot about him and all of us.”

According to D&R Greenway President and CEO Linda Mead, the location for this very first addition to the Scott and Hella Poetry Trail was chosen “because of its sweeping view of the lower fields, essentially a natural garden.”

Mr. Williams served on the Princeton University faculty from 1995 to 2013, where he taught creative writing, introductory and advanced poetry, dramatic adaptation and literary translation. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for his book Repair, also a finalist for the National Book Award. The Singing won the National Book Award for 2003; and Flesh and Blood received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1987. Falling Ill, completed 10 days before his death, is to be published in 2017.

Ms. Mauger calls it “an amazing farewell present.”

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