Hunt & Light Launches New Poetry Collection in Sag Harbor

The art of poetry remains alive and well in the world, thanks in large part to folks like Hamptons Gentleman Poet Lucas Hunt, who is continuing to create new books under his Hunt & Light imprint. This Saturday, August 15, Hunt is hosting a launch party for his newest poet, Esther Mathieu, and her book Constellations from 5–6:30 p.m. at Harbor Books in Sag Harbor.

Mathieu’s 75-page volume is Hunt & Light’s second collection of poetry and designed quite similarly to the publisher’s first book of poems, *****Original Message***** by Matthew Frazier, released in 2013. The two collections look quite handsome on the bookshelf together, but more than that, they prove poetry is still generating enough interest to warrant the creation of physical books, not just ebooks and online blogs.

This is especially true with Constellations, the product of a successful Hunt & Light Kickstarter campaign, which earned $6,545 in pledges—exceeding its $5,000 goal by more than $1,500. The campaign ended on April 30 and Hunt and his team quickly went to work editing and designing the book.

“Constellations by Esther Mathieu is a breathtakingly beautiful collection of poetry that positively captures the essence of language in verse,” Hunt says. “The lyrical storytelling is rich, rhythmic, transcendental in particular, and evokes spiritual dimensions. Mathieu’s voice is profoundly moving, and captures the human desire to ascend from concrete things to the abstract, with the reasoned levity of a mature poet in truthful, soothing tones,” he adds. “Never monotonous, always mellifluous, poems like ‘The Light We Do Not Speak Of’ and ‘What Bright New Fires Will Light the Night’ are expansive soundings of familiar subjects, composed with remarkable depth of emotion,” Hunt continues, describing the book and revealing his own penchant for the poetic (only the Gentleman Poet digs up words like “mellifluous”). “And lines like, ‘it hurt thinking of how much it hurt thinking of you,’ economically say what needs to be said about love, loss and pain.”

Mathieu, who was born in Manhattan and grew up in Queens, currently attends Colby College in Maine where she studies environmental planning, media and design. Her poetry has appeared in Troubadour, The Cambridge Tradition and Young Poets Speak Out.

Constellations is Mathieu’s first poetry collection.

After mostly living in the Hamptons for the last decade, and basing Hunt & Light out of East Hampton, Hunt is now spending more time in New York City, where he’s started his own literary agency with a PR company. “We are so happy to publish Esther, as she is a debut poet…and just a tremendously romantic and accessible poet, as well as a genius young woman,” he says of Mathieu and Constellations. Hunt created Hunt & Light with the mission to share the voices of new, inventive and original poets who “inspire with possibility.”

To meet Lucas Hunt, get copy of Esther Mathieu’s Constellations and hear her read from it, come to the launch at Harbor Books in Sag Harbor (20 Main Street, 631-808-3401) on Saturday, August 15 from 5–6:30 p.m. The reading is free and open to the public, but they ask that guests RSVP at huntandlight@gmail.com.

For more information about Constellations and Hunt & Light, visit huntandlight.com.