Love Poems of the Past and Present

By Rebekah Schroeder and Dan Aubrey

When a poet’s rhymes come from romance, each line penned by a writer eager to spin a sentimental song about their feelings or commit a lover’s visage to verse, the piece can live on past its era of origin.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, so does an event honoring a trailblazing local figure whose sense of activism and homeland pride was an amorous endeavor in itself.

Frances “Fanny” Isabelle Parnell (1848–1882), an Irish poet who expressed her nationalistic pride through writing and political action, came to Bordentown, where her mother’s ancestral home was, in 1874.

Dubbed the “Patriot Poet,” Parnell later passed away at this Mercer County family estate, but her literary devotion lives on in the Bordentown Poetry Project.

In recognition of Parnell’s contributions, as well as those of five noted regional and state writers—Ellen Foos, Luray Gross, Roberta Clipper, and Todd Evans—the FP Poetry Project will host a free February presentation and limited open reading at Bordentown’s Old City Hall on Sunday, February 5, at 2 p.m.

Dan Aubrey, a Bordentown-based writer, U.S. 1 Newspaper Editor, and arts coordinator, will host.

The initiative is organized by the Bordentown Old City Hall Restoration Committee’s “Cultural Vision” project, which was formed last year as a subcommittee of the volunteer group dedicated to rehabilitating the building at 11 Crosswicks Street.

So why not get equally lost in the words of yearning from yore? The long legacy of love poems published by the area’s earlier contributors, which evoke everlasting tenderness, are a fitting match to Bordentown’s more modern compositions.

Editor’s Note: A number of these older poems ran in a previous issue of Community News Service’s weekly Princeton metro area paper, U.S. 1, in February 2020 as “A Vintage Literary Bouquet for Valentine’s Day” by Dan Aubrey.

Annis Boudinot Stockton, also a poet and patriot, was one of the first women in her craft to be published in America. Stockon, who came from familial wealth of