Yes, it finally snuck into my life. In spite of my diligence for almost 3 years in wearing a mask and gloves in any indoor public space and handwashing/sanitizing until my hands felt raw, the current incarnation of the virus hit me like a fully-loaded truck.

I am grateful to have access to anti-viral medication which I hope will cut the severity of the disease. But getting COVID causes me to observe this:  Often, I was the only person masked indoors, the consequences of which are plain for everyone to see. ERs are overloaded as more as more people become very ill.

The lack of concern about how one person’s health can impact on others, particularly those most at risk– the vulnerable very young and the elderly — dominates herd thinking now. That’s more than a shame as it entails big time costs to society and each taxpayer.

Caring about the health of others needs to come back into fashion. Perhaps an influencer can help make that happen.

Here’s a piece from my collection with the working title REAPER, which contains short poems using words drawn from obituary notices and articles in the Toronto Globe and Mail. I hope to find a publisher for it in 2024. I write found poetry under my pseudonym, A. Garnett Weiss.

Best wishes to all for a healthy, happy 2024 and for healing for the world.

Masks

Satisfaction, a familiar face

come alive to teach containment,

relief and hope to the most animated,

although sometimes

at a price.

Sources: Words or phrases drawn unaltered from death notices and obituary articles published in the April 15, 2017 Toronto Globe and Mail.

JC thanks The Wellington Times for bringing her seasonal, prose poem, “Evergreen” to readers in Prince Edward County.

“For everyone who does not receive the print version of this weekly paper, here is the poem. I hope you enjoy it. Happy holidays to one and all.”

Evergreen

I unwrap the witch on her broomstick—a merry witch with red hat, plaid dress and a smile befitting a Christmas tree. I bought her at a shoppe filled with holiday fare in a small town on the way to Maine one July.

The hefty, ceramic angel in a tutu smiles from a nearby branch where a felted gnome in blue and white hangs below a pewter moose. The tin star from Mexico, each point a primary colour, reigns again after languishing in pieces until madcap glue reunited its halves.

I had not thought I’d have a real Christmas fir again. Holidays took us away from home to be with our children. With little joy, I divided decorations between them for their own trees, bid farewell in my mind as I saw how each ornament suited its new site.

Favourites I placed one-by-one in a box with compartments for bells, bears, birds, glass balls, figurines, snowflakes, and silvered spiderwebs.Just in case I should be lucky enough to have a real tree one more time.

I’m looking at our Balsam now. The story of each decoration returns to me as grandchildren find a perfect place on low branches for those not breakable. The younger boy I trust with tiny orbs in emerald. He keeps asking for one more.

When later I approach with fragile pieces for higher up, I see he has clustered the balls like grapes on one bough. He grins at me, says they are friends, like brothers, then crashes into his older sibling when my back is turned, their moment of harmony past.

On Sunday, December 10 on 99.3 County FM, the voice of Prince Edward County, JC recommended 5 poetry books in time for the holidays to Lynn Pickering, host of  The County Writes…The County Reads. 

 “What a challenge to decide which titles to feature in this interview. I chose poetry that illuminates this season of festivals of light, when there is such darkness in the world. I looked for poetry that spans the ages,” JC explained.

Her choices included the work of these fine poets: Rumi in the year that marks the 750^th Anniversary of the death of this Sufi mystic; Dylan Thomas; Lorna Crozier; J. Drew Lanham; Sharon Creech; and Edgar Lee Masters.

“If poets are prophets, how different would the world be today if Rumi’s views about systems of belief had held sway.”

JC read poems to illustrate why she made these particular recommendations and concluded her comments with a found poem from her new manuscript, Reaper, which she hopes a publisher will bring out in 2024.

Here’s the link to the Ontario Poetry Society’s contest which closes in mid-November:

https://www.theontariopoetrysociety.ca/contest-Found-Poem-Anthology-2023.html

JC can hardly wait to read the entries which are already coming in. “I enjoy found poetry, both when I create new work based on words or lines sourced elsewhere and also when I read what innovative poems others write. Found poetry is NOT a second class form of writing in my opinion but rather a way in which poets can find new ways of exploring and expressing their own unique points of view.”

JC encourages emerging and established poets to take the plunge into found poetry and to enter this contest.

“Halloween offers the chance to dress-up as someone or something completely different. Treat the creation of a found poem as a similar opportunity to embrace another dimension as a poet. I look very forward to my role as judge for the Ontario Poetry Society,” JC concludes.

JC returns to Blizzmax Gallery 3071 County Road 13 with 3 poems as part of an afternoon of 5-minute readings by Prince Edward County writers.  Organizers Nora-Lyn Veevers and Jane Macdonald invited local authors to tell a story in very short segments in what is an intimate and unique space.

Alice Mennecher is well known for the Gallery’s support of artists and writers in the County. “The Gallery provides a perfect setting for what promises to be an eclectic program,” JC noted.

Among featured readers are winners of the County Arts’s annual Wind & Water Writing Contests. JC’s centos, poems which use lines unaltered from the work of other poets with full attribution as to the sources of the lines,  took first place in the contest’s inaugural year, 2019, and again in 2023.

Signed copies of the collections featuring JC’s poetry — BRICOLAGE, A GATHERING OF CENTOS, and SOUTH SHORE SUITE…POEMS — will be available for sale at the event.

Invited to participate in an afternoon of 5-minute readings, JC began her segment of the program with one long poem, a triptych that captures three facets of her experience during a winter escape to South Carolina before the pandemic.

“I loved the idea of short readings on a summer’s day. Choosing which snippets of writing to share in just a few minutes in a line-up of fine Prince Edward County writers was a challenge, though,” JC admitted.

Organizers Nora-Lyn Veevers and Jane Macdonald selected local authors to participate in the event which was held on July 15 at Blizzmax Gallery,  3071 County Road 13. A second round will take place on  Saturday, August 19, at 3:00 PM.

Among readers were winners of the County Arts annual Wind & Water Writing Contests. JC’s centos took first place in the contest’s inaugural year, 2019, and again in 2023.

“I also read the winning cento from this year’s contest, which had connection as its theme: “For our many moods, there is nothing like a lantern.”

Copies of JC’s books — BRICOLAGE, A GATHERING OF CENTOS, SOUTH SHORE SUITE…POEMS, and TALES ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD, which contains the triptych– will be available for sale at the event.

Editor Rick Lupert has assembled a collection of memorable poems from writers around the world to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

 This is not an easy collection to read, but it is a courageous one. These poems and poets make unavoidable and important the act of remembering the scale of inhumanity of a nation driven to cruelty and crimes against a people because of their religious beliefs.

In a world where disinformation and misinformation have become rife, this stark reminder becomes more important each year in combatting revisionist history and ignorance.

JC thanks Poetry Super Highway for including the five-line poem, “Forced Journey,” in the 2023 issue. This found poem draws words or phrases unaltered from one day’s death notices published in the Toronto Globe and Mail. JC writes found poetry and centos under the name, A. Garnett Weiss. Here’s a link to the piece:

 https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/psh/25th-annual-yom-hashoah-holocaust-remembrance-day-poetry-issue/

JC brought her cento “Repeatedly, now in dream” to The Poets Corner Ekphrastic Pairings online reading on November 13. This poem draws lines unaltered, apart from changes in punctuation for the sake of grammar, from a collection by Norman Dubie. She appeared in the second half of the program.

One of 10 finalists selected by The Poets Corner in Maine, JC took delight in responding to the oil on paper work by Marc Hanson, entitled “Atmospheric, I.”

JC writes centos and found poetry under the pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss.

Here’s the link to the recording of the event:
https://www.thepoetscorner.org/events/ekphrastic-pairings

Here’s the link to the exhibition at the Page Gallery in Camden, Maine, where Marc Hanson’s work is on display. An in-person get-together, in which the artists exhibiting at the Gallery choose to read a poem from among those submitted, will take place on November 19, 2022.

https://www.thepagegallery.com/exhibition/ekphrastic-pairings/artwork

JC was delighted to craft a found poem to preface research papers originally presented in May at McGill University as part of the Dean Maxwell and Isle Cohen Seminar in International Law. She attended the program virtually.

Writing as A. Garnett Weiss, the pseudonym JC uses for found poetry and her celebrated centos, the poem draws individual words and phrases unaltered from two papers which appear in Volume 2 of the research studies, just published.

Here’s a link to “A form of transparency”: https://glsars.library.mcgill.ca/article/view/250/235

JC’s family established the Seminar to honour the many contributions of her parents to McGill’s Faculty of Law where her father taught and served as Dean.

“I thank the Graduate Law Student Association and particularly outgoing VP Academic Sandrine Ampleman-Tremblay and the co-editors of the research series for their work related to the Cohen Seminar,” JC concluded.

In spite of the rain, 7 intrepid Ottawa poets read from their recent poetry collections published by Thornhill’s Aeolus House.

The one-hour event took place at Perfect Books with an enthusiastic audience of poets and poetry-lovers.

Participating authors were: Miller Adams, Mary Lee Bragg, Brian Cameron, Blaine Marchand, Colin Morton, Claudia Coutu Radmore, and JC, writing as A. Garnett Weiss.

Copies of their collections are available from the bookstore at: 613 231 6468. Many thanks to Jim and Conyer at Perfect Books for the warm welcome and the great space.

JC was very pleased that publisher Allan Briesmaster invited her to read from BRICOLAGE, A GATHERING OF CENTOS at the book launch he hosted. She read selections from her collection, published in 2021 and a finalist for the 2022 Fred Kerner Book Award from the Canadian Authors Association. She also read “I didn’t know what to do,” the cento she composed by reusing lines from BRICOLAGE, in memoriam the child victims of Kamloops Residential School as the September 30 National Day for Truth and Reconciliation approached.

Aeolus House published JC’s collection of centos in July 2021 under her pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss. The book was among five finalists for the 2022 Fred Kerner Book Award from the Canadian Authors Association.

The event launched new poetry collections from Kent Bowman, Peter Jailall, Mori McCrae, and Daniel G Scott.

“I was honoured to appear on the bill with these fine poets and to celebrate the launch of their new books,” JC explained. Books will be available for purchase at the site. BRICOLAGE also can be ordered directly from bricolage.weiss@gmail.com

The GLOBE AND MAIL published JC’s letter to the Editor on September 13. She noted that the paper chose to include several letters pro the merger of the prize categories from two into a single English category and only one letter con, hers.

Here’s the link to the Letters page. The text, as published, follows below.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/letters/article-i-hope-that-those-who-voted-for-pierre-poilievre-will-enjoy-a

I am a longtime fan of the Griffin Poetry Prize’s Canadian and international categories. To posit that Canadians are up to competing with every poet writing in or translated into English seems more smokescreen than credible rationale for a single category.

It suggests to me that the prize process to date has coddled Canadian poets, which does them a great disservice. Their achievements in even getting published, within our country’s climate of diminishing publishing houses, restrictive retailers and flavours of the month, should be celebrated and championed at every opportunity.

I regret this decision to build up an already generous prize so that, in the end, the prize itself wins more profile on the international stage.

The Puppets Up! International Festival returned to Almonte August 12-14 and JC’s story played a part in it.

Students from Almonte schools under Jenny Sheffield’s direction performed THE MAGNOLIA THIEF along a tree-lined path, an “alameda,” on both Saturday and Sunday. JC narrated the voiceover.

“I am honoured that this year’s Festival staged THE MAGNOLIA THIEF, a very urban fairy tale. Having local students as the performers added to the delight. My thanks go to the festival’s Artistic Director Noreen Young for this opportunity.”

Written for young children and families, THE MAGNOLIA THIEF was inspired by JC’s love for the Saucer Magnolia in her backyard. “The magnolia began as a shrub, a gift for Mothers’ Day when our children were small. It now measures about 40 by 40 feet. I wrote the story in rhyme as a way to honour the tree and acknowledge the pleasure its blossoms give each spring.”

This year’s Festival lineup featured performances by troupes and puppeteers from Ontario, Quebec, Indonesia, Iceland and the US, including The Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers, Tanglewood Marionettes and Joshua Holden.

For kids of many generations, Nancy Drew mysteries by Carolyn Keene hooked them on reading. Whenever a new book came out, the local bookstore (and there were several independent! bookstores in my neighbourhood!) would sell out very quickly, as young readers couldn’t wait fo the puzzle their favourite sleuth would unravel.

Garnett is pleased that Silver Birch Press of California chose her erasure poem “With original mystery” for the anthology, published on October 1. This poem extracts words from titles of Nancy Drew books in the order they appeared on the the page preceding the inside title page of “The Hidden Staircase,” published in 1930 and reprinted in 1995. The poem and the page showing the erasure appear in the collection.

Copies of the anthology will be available through the publisher and from Amazon.com. The publisher’s price per volume is $15. Here’s the link to Silver Birch Press’s release:

https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/new-release-nancy-drew-anthology/

Garnett’s second poem arising from Nancy Drew sources will be posted on her own website. “Siren” This uses bon-contiguous phrases, taken unaltered from”Nancy Drew: The Secret of Mirror Bay,” published in 1972.

JC is delighted “Scales” received an Honorable Mention and will appear in the upcoming “Loves Lies Bleeding” anthology from The Ontario Poetry Society (TOPS).

“I have found it difficult to sustain my equilibrium and my writing practice during the pandemic years and the upheavals in Canada and elsewhere. Although the poem begins with a dream, it moves on from that experience to my everyday reality: how current events weigh upon me in a debilitating way and force me to create a refuge of sorts,” JC explained.

“I thank the judges and TOPS for including “Scales” in the anthology and for giving the poem this award.”

FRAMED & FAMILIAR: 101 PORTRAITS, is an international anthology of poetry and photography just published as an e-book by Hidden Brooks Press.

The collection features two of JC’s poems. Here’s a link to the book and to her poems:
“Long playing” (page 174) and “Self, imagery” (page 175.)

https://issuu.com/richardgrove1/stacks/40131a9b3e1d42b8b4a0b829dc08ec2e

“I am delighted that Poetry Editor Antony Di Nardo chose to include my work in this stunning anthology. Among such fine words and images, my poems are in good company, indeed,” JC noted.

JC’s memory of a dream prompted her to write “Sleep, hiding” which is rooted in her experience during the first year of the pandemic. She is delighted that Public Poetry (Houston, Texas) and Director Fran Sanders chose this poem as a finalist and included it in PANDEMIC POEMS, their new anthology, now available for purchase.

Public Poetry hosted a lively online launch featuring several poets reading from the new anthology on July 7, 2022.

“What struck me is how amazing it is to be ‘in the room’ with poets and poetry lovers from across the United States, to have the opportunity to hear the poems featured in Public Poetry’s new anthology read aloud, and also to share with that community thoughts and work that are memorable.”

JC was happy to receive comments and feedback on her use of the cento form after she read her cento in memoriam Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg as her second poem of the evening.

Here’s the link for a way to purchase Public Poetry’s new collection:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1087992478/ref=ox_sc_act_image_2?smid=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&psc=1

BRICOLAGE, A GATHERING OF CENTOS, is JC’s most recent poetry book, published by Aeolus House in 2021 under her pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss. The collection was a finalist for the 2022 Fred Kerner Book Award from the Canadian Authors Association. https://canadianauthors.org/national/fred-kerner-book-awards-2022-winner-and-shortlist/

Copies of BRICOLAGE are available from Octopus Books (Ottawa, Ontario), Books & Company (Picton, Ontario) and from bricolage.weiss@gmail.com

Poetry Super Highway Editor and Publisher Rick Lupert released the 24th annual Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) issue for Thursday, April 28.

JC is honoured to have her poem “Panorama” appear in the issue which features the work of 104 poets from around the world. “Panorama” first appeared in the Canadian Jewish News and then in JC’s debut poetry collection, SOUTH SHORE SUITE…POEMS from Point Petre Publishing in 2017.

Here is the link to access this special issue on the Poetry Super Highway site: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/psh/24th-annual-yom-hashoah-holocaust-remembrance-day-poetry-issue/

Host Lynn Pickering embraces National Poetry Month by dedicating the April 10 broadcast of THE COUNTY WRITES…THE COUNTY READS to that celebration with a fine lineup of poets, including JC.

The program includes a segment originally taped around the launch of JC’s collection of centos, BRICOLAGE, written under her pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss. JC invites listeners to a poetry reading on the theme of Intimacy and Hope. Convened by publisher Allan Briesmaster, the event will feature eight poets published by his Aeolus House. To receive an invitation to the live-streamed April 25 event at 7:30 PM EDT, just email allan@aeolushouse.com.

Here’s a link the radio station’s post with information on the show tomorrow. Tune in and hear local poets and personalities read Purdy and their own poetry. The program begins after the noon news and runs until 1:00 PM EDT.

https://www.facebook.com/993CountyFM

Publisher Allan Briesmaster of Aeolus House welcomed a great audience to hear eight authors read from their recent books of poetry. JC, reading as A. Garnett Weiss, the pseudonym she uses for centos and other found poetry, chose 4 poems from BRICOLAGE and unveiled 3 centos written since the collection came out last summer. Many people stayed for the lively question-and-answer session which ended the evening.

“It was both an honour and a privilege for me to participate in this National Poetry Month celebration of fine poetry. I am grateful to Allan and to the League of Canadian Poets for making the event possible. I was delighted with how many of my friends and colleagues were able to attend. Great to ‘see’ them there.”

Signed copies of BRICOLAGE at $18 each are available from: bricolage.weiss@gmail.com, and from Octopus Books in Ottawa, octopusbooks.ca and Books and Company in Picton, www.pictonbookstore.com

JC Sulzenko is delighted that California-based Silver Birch Press chose her poem as a New Year’s Eve toast in its current series on Thoughts About the Earth/Healing the Earth. Here’s the link to the post:

https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2021/12/31/splendid-terms-by-a-garnett-weiss-thoughts-about-the-earth-series/

Written under JC’s pseudonym, A. Garnett Weiss, the poem draws individual words from death notices and obituary articles which appeared in the April 20, 2017, Toronto GLOBE AND MAIL. The piece is one of a full collection of such five-line poems now in development. “Splendid terms” also featured in the Poetry Leaves 2020 project (Waterford Township Public Library).

BOXING DAY COLOURS

Three black pigeons found solace

in the too-warm puddles

They alone had not dreamt of a white Christmas

Did not regret the grim, gray slush

that bequeathed lines of salt to new leather boots

still stiff from packages, now crushed and

stuffed along with blue reindeer wrapping

and rivers of silver ribbon

into bulging green garbage bags

at the curb

of a new year

Here’s the link to JC’s poem, “How to find your voice,” in the current series offered by California-based Silver Birch Press (SBP).

https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2021/03/31/how-to-find-your-voice-by-jc-sulzenko-how-to-series/

“I took a quasi prose poem approach in this topic,” JC explained. “I love singing and had confidence in my strong voice and ability to sing on key. It came as a nasty surprise when I heard a melody in my head but couldn’t get the song out.

“This SBP series offered me the ideal opportunity to look at why and how I had come to this tuneless place. And to share how I dealt with it.

“Joining an online chapter of the choir Shout Sister gives me the chance to rediscover what I had mislaid. Even when we can return to in person practices, I hope virtual, weekly sessions will continue. I’m loving every moment.

“Thank you, SBP Editor Melanie Villines for featuring “How to find your voice” in this eclectic series and for selecting the beautiful Mary Cassatt portrait to accompany its publication.”

Here’s the link to the art show which launched today on Facebook. Once there, please click ‘discussion’ to access the works of art and commentary.
https://www.facebook.com/events/435477617556915

JC is one of 15 artists and writers contributing to this virtual show. The project, sponsored by the Prince Edward County Arts Council and the Community Care for Seniors Association, paired each participating artist with a local senior and encouraged them to hold up to five conversations. From that shared experience, the artists and writers produced a work drawing on what they learned about and from each other.

“Our telephone conversations took us to Waupoos Island, where my almost 100 year-old partner was born, and around the County as we talked about ancestors and landscape, family and friends, food and history.

“It was a delight to meet Catherine, even if only over the phone, and to find out how we shared a love of poetry and particularly the words of Al Purdy. Together, we read “In search of Owen Roblin” aloud and from that exchange came my cento, in honour of Al and of Catherine.”

Writing as A. Garnett Weiss, the pseudonym JC uses when she writes centos and found poetry, JC chose lines from Purdy’s long poem for her cento, “I am a screen through which the world passes.” JC thanked Martin Soldat for his advice about arraying the poem.

“My part in this innovative program connecting people during the pandemic brought me great joy. I am grateful to the organizers for giving me this unique opportunity.”

The show runs for two weeks. Please offer comments on the FB post about what you read and see.

Writing as A. Garnett Weiss, JC was delighted to contribute her cento, “How the voices of light enter the body,” to the tribute video assembled for the former US Poet Laureate’s 80th birthday, March 22. The poem draws lines unaltered, apart for purposes of grammar or punctuation, from Billy’s collection, “Sailing Alone Around the Room.” Here’s the link to her reading you can cut and paste into your browser:
https://www.tribute.co/american-poet-billy-collins/?video=3c7d4c9b-fa77-c03a-3217-0858e707e029

Billy and his spouse have brought his poetry and his thoughts about poetry to a regular audience of almost 400 for a half-hour, 5 nights a week during the last year.

“These poetry broadcasts offered regular followers, including me, a looked-forward-to, late afternoon gift—respite from the tribulations of the day. Billy’s unique voice capturing experience in an accessible and eloquent way, delivered without pretense in the surprising intimacy of his home, gave me such a boost. Every day!

“Here’s wishing Billy and his family good health and happiness for many, many, many years to come.”

Poetry Quarter (PQ) in the January/February Glebe Report published today features poems by eight local poets on the theme of “It Could Happen to You.”

Here’s the link to the paper
https://www.glebereport.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/GR_Jan_February-12-2021_WEB.pdf

Scroll to page 24 for the poems JC selected for this issue and to see the submission call for the next PQ. The theme for May is tied to the sense of Spring–what it feels like: deliverance, relief, asylum and safety or the opposite. The deadline is April 26.

JC writes found poetry and centos using her pseudonym, A. Garnett Weiss. “I decided to make a distinction between these found poems, particularly centos, and what I write of a narrative or lyric nature, which I sign with my own name. For me, the process of composing a cento, for example, is completely different from how I approach a free verse poem. By using my pseudonym, I gained the independence I needed to move forward with found poetry.

Given the cacophony of political rhetoric these days, JC offers “Loose in the cathedral.” This five-line piece uses individual words drawn from death notices and obituary articles published in the Toronto Globe and Mail on April 17, 2017. It first appeared on JC’s Facebook page in 2018 in response to US writer Anne Lamott. Her collection of such poems is making the rounds of publishers.

Loose in the Cathedral

Privileged to know
someone else’s pain,
grieving for an approachable place,

an open door around the world,
the degree of vitriol and hate defrocked.

BOXING DAY COLOURS

Three black pigeons found solace

in the too-warm puddles

They alone had not dreamt of a white Christmas

Did not regret the grim, gray slush

that bequeathed lines of salt to new leather boots

still stiff from packages, now crushed and

stuffed along with blue reindeer wrapping

and rivers of silver ribbon

into bulging green garbage bags

at the curb

of a new year

JC thanks Editor Jenny O’Grady for pairing her with Ron Tobey and for publishing her two poems, “Luck. Now” and “From Sea to Sea.”

“I am grateful that my work has been favoured a number of times by The Light Ekphrastic (TLE) and that these poems appear during the Journal’s 10th anniversary year.”

Here is the link to their ekphrastic collaboration to paste into your browser: https://thelightekphrastic.com/tobey-sulzenko-november-2020/

“I take joy in writing poetry inspired by works of art and in what is unique about the TLE process. Each artist and poet pair chosen by the Editor receives several offerings from his or her ‘Artner’ from which to select one as the focus of new work.

“For the first time in writing such poems, I received videos, one of which included the voiceover by the videographer-poet. I hesitated. Accustomed to working from a still image or an object, I couldn’t see a way in, particularly because I didn’t want my work to be influenced by Ron Tobey’s words.

“I chose “Days Rise” and received permission from Ron to mute his poem so that I could concentrate upon images in the video. I asked him questions in an exchange of emails before I began to fashion “Luck. Now.” Only after I had completed the poem and sent it to TLE did I allow myself to listen to Ron read.

“After that, I waited to share “Luck. Now.” with Ron until he had submitted his piece in response to my poem, “From Sea to Sea.” While he chose to wait to read “Luck. Now” until when our work would be published, I couldn’t resist watching “Open your Eye” immediately.

“I remain spellbound by the synchronicity between “Luck. Now” and “Open Your Eye.” Each of us, responding to a different work of art by the other, came independently to an alignment that is nothing short of a wonder to me. Ron’s serendipitous choice of the title for his video and the wording of my last stanza in “Luck. Now” provide one example.

“Open Your Eye” misses none of the oceanic emotions embodied in “From Sea to Sea,” right from the video’s first sequences, staccato images and spectral footsteps. In my comments to Ron, I welcomed how the video moves from stark portrayals of loss into sunlight that streams around the construction of a new home in a landscape that welcomes two young people into its embrace.

“My participation in this ekphrastic collaboration has been a privilege and enriched my writing life,” JC concluded.

For information on imagistic poet Ron Tobey: https://vimeo.com/userturin

This new, online series from California-based Silver Birch Press gave JC the opportunity to write about someone she met in the context of restrictions imposed by the pandemic who is, in his unique way, a prime mover among ‘front line’ workers. She is grateful to SBP for favouring her work with publication.

Embarrassed about the boxes of wine bottles accumulated while recycling options were unavailable, JC learned about David and his family’s novel approach to raising funds for his favourite charities.They come to the house, take away the bottles, and donate the proceeds from the returns. David’s mother, enthusiastic and warmhearted, shared his story and championed her son’s services, with emphasis on his abilities and commitment.

In “Ode to a wine-lover’s friend” JC captured the moment of their meeting and this young man’s positive disposition. She hopes David and his family will welcome the tribute.

Here is a link to the poem to cut and paste into your browser:
https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2020/09/06/ode-to-a-wine-lovers-friend-by-jc-sulzenko-prime-movers-series/

JC curates Poetry Quarter (PQ), a regular feature in the community newspaper, The Glebe Report.

The November issues features work related to the works of William Shakespeare. “We received surprising and worthwhile riffs off Shakespeare bound to offset mid-November doldrums. To read the poems, please put this link into your browser. Go to https://www.glebereport.ca/poetry-quarter-16/

For the next PQ challenge, with a submission deadline of January 15, 2l21, here’s what the The Glebe Report seeks:

Roses are red, violets are blue” –- an over-used line to be sure, but we use it to launch our theme for February’s Poetry Quarter: It could happen to you!

Send us your poems on the theme of love to illuminate the long winter nights around Valentine’s Day.
Bring light, passion and joy – or their opposite forces – to bear on words you choose to share in poetic form about your loves, your hates and your in-betweens.

Local poets: Come one, come all!

JC is delighted that California-based Silver Birch Press has featured her poem about the Grand Canyon in its new series on landmarks.

Here’s the link to the post to paste into your browser:

https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/at-the-south-rim-by-jc-sulzenko-landmarks-series/

“I thank Silver Birch Press Editor Melanie Villines for publishing “At the South Rim” along with my explanation of how that one-time visit to the canyon affected and continues to affect me. I hope one day to return. Sharing this poem takes me to the moment I first took in the spectacle that is the Grand Canyon and felt somehow I had been let in on a secret beyond my imagination.”

Anthem

The Mountie sings “O Canada”—
a fine baritone in scarlet.
Odd how his stiff, brown hat stays put.

I strain to hear the others. Their singing jumbles
off high glass planes, transparent walls.
I make out “Des plus brilliants,

God keep,
Glorious and free.”
I hear my voice, small in the great room

“O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.”
I will the words to be true,
fear we are not up to it.

Many don’t vote,
squander their choices, our democracy.
Grumble at leaders in power almost by default.

Our fault, really.
Centred in little lives, blind to our need
to protect our Canada — beautiful, fragile.

We ought to know better, to know
what to do for our country every day
and in times of flood, plague, war and fire.

Could someone tell us how
or should we go out there, start somewhere,
work not only for ourselves

but for our Canada.
A half hour a day spent by
each of the 37+ million of us

(minus the sick, the too-young)
would sure buy a lot
of standing on guard.

JC Sulzenko
(CBC radio broadcast an early version of this poem )

JC, a Jane Austen devotee, just finished this Oakville author’s 2020 novel. JC gives it an 8.5/10 rating. Go to Bookends to see the review.

The June 12 Glebe Report carries JC’s review of this memoire by Whitehorse-based author Eva Holland. ALLEN LANE, an imprint of Penguin Canada published “Nerve” in May.

The review admits upfront that JC has known the writer since she was a child and has watched her career with an interest that is both a professional and personal.

If JC had reviewed the book on this site for her “Bookends” feature, what rating would JC have given “Nerve?” 9/10!

Here’s the link to the paper. The article appears on page 22.
https://www.glebereport.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/GR-June-2020_web.pdf

Right after Editor Melanie Villines ended this California press’s hiatus, JC welcomed the opportunity to contribute her poem “Deadbolt” to its new, online series.

“The Editor’s choice of ’my front door’ for the current series’ theme strikes me as inspired and evocative. During the pandemic, what happens inside or outside open or closed doors, whether metaphorical or physical, offers poets such scope to explore experiences real or imagined,” JC commented.

Silver Birch Press has published JC’s poems in a number of its anthologies and in various online series. She is the only Canadian whose work appears in its 2015 chapbook anthology, IDES.

Here is the link to “Deadbolt” to cut and paste into your browser:

https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/deadbolt-by-jc-sulzenko-my-front-door-series/

zoom once defined a lens
now opens conversations
face-to-face-to-face

JC was delighted that Editors at VALLUM chose her found poem “Whether or not transference occurs” for issue 17.1, which launched at an innovative, online watch party on April 24, 2020. Here is the link that will bring you her reading.

https://www.facebook.com/VallumMagazine/videos/174245443751882/

“Whether or not transference occurs” uses words drawn unaltered from death notices and obituary articles published on a single day in the Toronto GLOBE AND MAIL. The poem is part of a full collection seeking a publisher.

“I thank VALLUM’S Editors for including my piece in the ‘home’ issue. It’s a privilege to appear in the magazine and to be in the fine company of other poets whose work is featured there,” JC noted after the launch. She took the opportunity also to read two centos.

Here is a link to VALLUM’s whole digital issue 17.1:

http://www.vallummag.com/current_issue_copy171.html

JC writes centos and found poetry under the pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss.

JC offers her deepest sympathy to the family of patriarch Ellis Marsalis along with her poem,”Like father, like son.” Written in 2003 after the Marsalis family played together at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, the poem has been published elsewhere, most recently in VERSE AFIRE (The Ontario Poetry Society.)

May memories of Ellis, as was his life, be a blessing.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

Ellis Marsalis caresses the keys, releases melody.
His sons trombone, sax, trumpet, drum
into the music, explore its geography,
improvise new routes to the source of sound.

They play together, yet play alone,
a composition so intimate it’s a surprise
when the jazz flows back to where it began.

What lingers is not only the music.
It’s Ellis. His voice soft,
he introduces each son
as though unwrapping a gift.

Did he know from the start how it would be,
sharing the same stage, each other’s rhythms
the joyful dissonance, harmonies?

He’d likely say luck had a hand in it, led
his boys past the usual rejection of a father’s
ways to choose such instruments
for the love of him, for the love of song.

COUNTING

First the children, immune to this assault,
their coughs and sneezes innocent for now.
Then their parents, our children —
not in the crosshairs, but still…

These tykes, their dads & moms feel well,
grateful for no symptoms, yet wide-aware
every breath’s a timebomb tick
if they’re carriers.

We, the elders/the old, keep distant, weave
sorry days around, away from those we love.
Cloistered, anxious, tethered to a hope for health,
we hold no expectation of normal.

A wall
transparent, translucent

Easy to walk through
if you dare

I don’t
I stare at the street

Sunlit, snow covered
empty

Put my hands up to the wall
Feel cold, cold

cold as hard as my choices
Be exposed or cocoon

Hyper-vigilant, yet numb
I want to run, don’t know where

JC is very pleased that her work will appear in upcoming issues of VALLUM: CONTEMPORARY POETRY and THE NAUGATUCK RIVER REVIEW. In May, Poetry Leaves, a poetry exhibition and anthology project of the Waterford Township Public Library (Michigan), was slated to feature her for the second year in a row.

“I’m delighted by the reception my found poetry has received and look forward, as well, to seeing an ekphrastic poem based on an image by Prince Edward County photographer Graham Davies in print.

JC continues to curate “Poetry Quarter” for the community newspaper,THE GLEBE REPORT, and serves on the selection board for ByWords.ca, an online, monthly poetry journal.

BOXING DAY COLOURS

Three black pigeons found solace

in the too-warm puddles

They alone had not dreamt of a white Christmas

Did not regret the grim, gray slush

that bequeathed lines of salt to new leather boots

still stiff from packages, now crushed and

stuffed along with blue reindeer wrapping

and rivers of silver ribbon

into bulging green garbage bags

at the curb

of a new year

JC is very pleased that Jenny O’Grady, Editor and Publisher of The Light Ekphrastic (TLE), chose her to collaborate with Baltimore artist Leah Michaels for the August issue of the online journal.

The journal exclusively publishes ekphrastic collaborations.

JC is no stranger to TLE and welcomes the opportunity to write in response to works of art and to have her work interpreted by artists who use various media.

In “Recessional,” JC offered a poem originally written to incorporate words from a poetry challenge. Leah Michaels chose to create an image related to memory, relationship, language, and ruins in response.

In “I must bury sorrow,“ JC writing as A. Garnett Weiss, used the cento form and lines from Robert Browning to respond to Leah’s image of The Angel of Grief by 19th century US sculptor William Wetmore Story.

Here is the link to their work to cut and paste into your browser:
https://thelightekphrastic.com/august-2019-issue-39/michaels-sulzenko-august-2019/

JC thanked Leah Michaels and Jenny O’Grady for the chance to let art influence her poetry and for her poetry to influence art in such a forum.

“I find great joy in writing ekphrastic poetry,” JC admits. “I feel enriched by each experience.”

Working together, JC and writing partner Carol A. Stephen have developed a full collection of ekphrastic poems written collaboratively, some of which have been published. All they need now is a poetry publisher to help these innovative intepretations reach a wider audience.

Poet JC brought her impromptu poetry-writing to the Birds and Bees Fundraiser on Saturday, July 27 during two, 90-minute time slots.

For a $10 fee, she interviewed willing nature enthusiasts and turned what she learned into a poem with a minimum of 3 lines, which the buyer received in file form after the event. All proceeds benefitted PEPtBO in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Use this link to access a poem JC wrote in response to a commission at the event by Tamara Segal:

https://www.facebook.com/324148114673039/posts/718871921867321?s=714679292&sfns=mo

“This tailored poem is a mini-version of the services I provide when I write poetry on commission,” JC explained.

JC only writes on subjects within the bounds of public discourse. There are no returns, and the copyright for each poem stays with JC.

“I just can’t resist the challenge: writing to a subject not of my choosing, suggested by someone whom I didn’t know beforehand, for the most part, to mark a birthday, an anniversary, a special event or person, or in memoriam,” JC admits. “That is why I launched “BESPOKE POETRY” to give me the chance to create new poems or poems to-go this way.”

JC began her love affair with poetry written on demand many summers ago at a showcase for artists, crafts people and assorted others in her neighbourhood. Wearing a lot of sunscreen and with paper pad and pen, she set up a table and offered to write poems for visitors at $2.50 each, the proceeds of which went to a charitable organization. She cannot remember to which one the modest take went that first year.

Though not a big fundraiser, JC found the experience exhilarating. “I used a number of the poems written at that festival in “Fat poems Tall poems Long poems Small,” my ekphrastic book of poems for families and children to which Ottawa artists contributed interpretative illustrations.” Several other poems found their way into chapbooks.

For a couple of years, JC returned to the venue. Each year, the price tag went up by a bit. The final year of her participation, she raised funds for a local hospital.

Then she stopped, overtaken by other writing projects including “Boot Crazy” and later by “What My Grandma Means to Say,” her book and play about Alzheimer’s disease.

Now she has taken up poetry on commission again with enthusiasm. The process begins with agreement on a base price for the poem, which can take the form of free verse or rhyme. The ‘buyer’ pays JC upfront. Then, there’s an interview which can take as little as 10 minutes over the phone or up to an hour face-to-face, where that’s convenient to the parties.

JC considers carefully what she has learned about the subject and writes the poem within the timeframe agreed to in the discussions. The length of the poem can vary depending the subject matter. Once she’s satisfied, she shares the poem and asks for comments as to accuracy only. If there are any factual inaccuracies, she corrects them and then provides a final text.

She asks that the poem not be published without her prior permission and then only with clear acknowledgment as to her authorship.

“I have written about a granddaughter’s graduation from high school on her birthday, the death of a child, a dog who dreams. It’s such an adventure, never knowing where a new poem will begin or to where it will take me.”

JC is back in book review mode at long last.
Go to Bookends on this website to read her take on the novel, “Suzanne”, a 2019 CBC Canada Read’s selection, to which she gives an unusual 8/10 score.

The Prince Edward County Arts Council’s inaugural Wind and Water writing contest gave JC the opportunity to submit her cento, “Sacred place where each thing speaks itself” for consideration. JC writes centos and found poetry using her pseudonym, A. Garnett Weiss.

She read the poem, which won the competition, during the Picton Art Crawl on Thursday, June 27 at the Art in the County exhibition.

JC thanked the jury for selecting her poem. “The cento is a poetic form which gives me great pleasure to write. It’s like a puzzle when I choose and use lines from the fine work of other poets from many eras to create a completely new work which both respects the original material yet takes its own path.”

JC’s centos have been successful in many contests and appear in a number of anthologies. Her lyric and narrative poems appear in “South Shore Suite, Poems.”

Information on the Suite is available from the publisher, www.pointpetrepublishing.ca.

JC is delighted that the poems she submitted to the 2019 Writers-Editor’s Network WrEN Award for Poetry took first place in the poetry for children category.

JC had put forward 5 poems from her suite, “Pelican Circus,” also the lead poem. The other titles were: “The Pelican and the pirate”, “In the Everglades”, “Signs and Wonders “, and “The Rescue.”

Here is a the link to the announcement: https://www.writers-editors.com/Writers/Contests/Winners/winners.htm .

The reason for the award? “Strong observation, skilful use of description and environmental awareness mark these poems.”

In addition to the comments posted there, Judge Mary Harwell Sayler wrote JC a letter in which she noted the following: “I appreciate your introducing a sense of story… Poems often excel when they help readers to ‘be there’, which your poetry certainly does.”

She added, “This type of writing will surely help young people to care about nature, and, hopefully, become actively involved in positive ways throughout their lives.”

JC thanks Judge Harwell Sayler and the Writers-Editors Network for honouring her work with this prize .

“Now all I need is a publisher to come forward so that children and families can enjoy the whole suite of poems which follows a child from the North country on his first visit to the south in winter.”

Just after the June 16 Sunday noon news, JC recommends a book that influenced her as part of a panel on Lynn Pickering’s The County Writes…The County Reads, 99.3 FM Prince Edward County.

Sworn to secrecy until the big reveal, JC welcomed the opportunity to hype her selection as a book from which every Canadian would draw benefits at many levels.

Selecting one title proved challenging. She almost chose Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” a book she revels in rereading. She also found it difficult to resist Anne Lamott’s “Bird By Bird,” which she considers one of the best primers on how to let oneself develop a writing process that is satisfying.
Tune into the show. Here’s a link: https://www.facebook.com/993CountyFM

On Thursday, June 27 JC joins in Arts Crawl festivities with a reading at the Armoury in Picton, Ontario at 6:30 PM.

The Prince Edward County Arts Council held its inaugural Wind and Water Writing Contest, which JC won. JC will read the winning cento, written using her pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss, and a selection from her debut collection, “South Shore Suite…POEMS,” from Point Petre Publishing (www.pointpetrepublishing.ca)

Here’s a link to the FB posting from the Council about the event and the Crawl around town.
https://www.experiencepicton.com/picton-art-crawl?fbclid=IwAR3Kh_BYE7_7jR01jx3OxTP1I6_N6jbYqxfS39qlSOX50naYTd5eA-vUaGs

JC is very pleased that her cento “Sacred place where each thing speaks itself” won first place in the inaugural Wind and Water Writing Contest convened by the Prince Edward County Arts Council. She writes found poetry and centos using the pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss.

This is how the Arts Council website describes the Jury’s rationale for selecting “Sacred place where each thing speaks itself”:

“The winner was chosen from dozens of entries in a wide variety of genres, yet Sulzenko’s piece stood out for eloquent use of imagery, a clear and confident voice, and unique line breaks that made for a stunning and powerful read. Sulzenko’s creativity perfectly captured our theme of Exploring, creating an image that speaks to anyone familiar with the County and nature itself. JC Sulzenko has published poetry widely, in national and local award and has published in many other literary magazines.”

JC thanks jury members playwright Marianne Ackerman, publisher Leigh Nash of Invisible Publishing, and writer Sarah Selecky for choosing her work and local author Kelly Thompson for short-listing the poem.

Here is the link to the Council’s site, where the cento is posted:
https://countyarts.ca/wind-water-writing-contest/

County readers and nature enthusiasts celebrated the release in print of the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory’s 46-page, full colour poetry chapbook “For the Birds,” first published on its website in January, 2019.

The collection of 20 winning poems written by 17 poets from the County and away and complemented by fine images taken by local photographers Ian Dickinson and Hélène Tremblay came together as a result of the Observatory’s first poetry contest. Poems by County writer and publisher Brian L. Flack and by Walter H. Watt of Richmond Hill shared first place in the contest.

As part of PEPtBO’s May 11- 20 Spring Birding Festival programming (www.peptbo.ca), this special event included the awards ceremony and readings by poets whose work appears in “For the Birds.” Prince Edward County Public Library CEO Barbara Sweet welcomed the poets and friends to the launch and spoke of the value of the relationship the Library enjoys with PEPtBO. PEPtBO Vice-President and Municipal Counsellor John Hirsch awarded prizes to the winning poets.

Copies of “For the Birds” @ $12 each are available at the Observatory during the festival, from PEPtBO’s online store and at Books and Co. and the Local Store in the County. Net proceeds from the sale of each chapbook benefit PEPtBO’s migration monitoring and reporting work at the County’s South Shore.

JC congratulated the finalists at the May 14 Awards ceremony in Ottawa. Here’s the link to the Canadian Authors Association (Ottawa Branch) announcement of winning writers and poems.
http://canadianauthors.org/nationalcapitalregion/contests/ncwc/

JC felt honoured to judge the poetry entries in this year’s writing contest. “I recognize how idiosyncratic the process is: one judge’s selections are particular to that judge.

“Judging the work blind is a blessing, so that the identity of the top entrants remained unknown to me until the announcement. I was delighted with the results! The winning poems by Sylvia Adams and by Susan Atkinson were both memorable and incomparable, which is why I recommended, and the CAA accepted, that these poets share first place in the competition.”

Texts of the winning poetry and short stories will be published in “Byline”, the Branch’s newsletter.

With sadness, JC read today of the death of master poet Patrick Lane.

JC, writing as A. Garnett Weiss, created a cento for her manuscript which uses lines from individual poems in Lane’s collection of 40 poems, “Winter.”

She offers the poem here to pay homage to Lane’s legacy and in his memory.

In that certain darkness decided

He is the dream man, given to her by the snow;
a sharp, lean hero, immaculate and alone
where the weak have no place.

She knows their flesh is a repetition.
It is the story about grief and music
scored with myriad tiny cuts
so perfect no one will ever know
to listen to their singing, the voices,
the shouts, the lamentation after
their wild impossible crying for more.

Everything is ready to begin
that impossible dream of beauty
because it resembles the unfolding we call love.

Cento gloss: In that certain darkness decided
Title: Patrick Lane, “Winter 4”*
Line 1: Patrick Lane, “Winter 40”
Line 2: Patrick Lane, “Winter 43”
Line 3: Patrick Lane, “Winter 32”
Line 4: Patrick Lane, “Winter 36”
Line 5: Patrick Lane, “Winter 35”
Line 6: Patrick Lane, “Winter 8”
Line 7: Patrick Lane, “Winter 21”
Line 8: Patrick Lane, “Winter 10”
Line 9: Patrick Lane, “Winter 42”
Line 10: Patrick Lane, “Winter 11”
Line 11: Patrick Lane, “Winter 6”
Line 12: Patrick Lane, “Winter 22”
Line 13: Patrick Lane, “Winter 29”

JC is thrilled to participate in READ ACROSS AMERICA DAY in Beaufort.

Here’s a link to what is spearheaded by the United Way of the Lowcountry from 10:00 AM until 1:00 PM on the anniversary of Dr. Seuss’s birthday.

https://uwlowcountry.org/read-across-america-3/

The free program of readings, games and food is aimed at children from Pre-K to Grade 3 and takes place at 801 Carteret St., the Center for the Arts at the University of South Carolina Beaufort.

JC learned about this celebration through local author Elizabeth Belenchia and welcomes the kind invitation of the United Way to share her poems and stories with Lowcountry children and their families.

Wait ‘til you see what JC wears to help her explain what makes a poem a poem and as she reads from “Boot Crazy” and “Fat poems Tall poems Long poems Small.”

She may even try out some new poems to get feedback from the kids.

When JC read of the death of poet Mary Olive, she paused to remember very fine words by Oliver that will stay with her always.

“As A.Garnett Weiss, I wrote the following cento a few years ago, which I offer in recognition of Oliver’s craft and soul as a poet. May her memory as was her life be a blessing,” JC stated.

HOW DOES ANY OF US LIVE IN THIS WORLD

In every language, there is a word for it—
the dark heart of the story that is all.

Like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of a song
about the great wheel of growth,
the world offers itself to your imagination,

aches to be peaceful finally and at any cost—
a dream that would never breathe air.

How the mind clings to the world it knows, rushing
by the notion of oblivion:

all those gleaming and reasonless lives
in the crease and spasm of the thing about to be done
in those dark halls of honey,

with the reason for the wind forever a secret.

Cento gloss: How does any of us live in this world
Title: Mary Oliver, “Consequences”
Line 1: Mary Oliver, “The River”
Line 2: Mary Oliver, “The Chance to Love Everything”
Line 3: Mary Oliver, “Dogfish”
Line 4: Mary Oliver, “Stanley Kunitz”
Line 5: Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”
Line 6: Mary Oliver, “Members of the Tribe”
Line 7: Mary Oliver, “The Swimmer”
Line 8: Mary Oliver, “Robert Schumann”
Line 9: Mary Oliver, “Bowing to the Empress”
Line 10: Mary Oliver, “Whispers”
Line 11: Mary Oliver, “The Shark”
Line 12: Mary Oliver, “The Moths”
Line 13: Mary Oliver, “Orion”

JC Sulzenko welcomes “For the Birds,” the 46-page collection of winning poems in the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory’s first contest, complemented by full-colour images taken by local photographers.

Published online (www.peptbo.ca) by the Observatory (PEPtBO) on January 15, the words of 17 poets and photos by Ian Dickinson and Hélène Tremblay offer a unique celebration of bird life in the County. Poems by Brian L. Flack and Walter H. Watt took the top prize in PEPtBO’s first poetry contest.

“We held this contest and are publishing this beautiful chapbook online to keep a focus through the winter on the importance of bird migration and habitat to Prince Edward County, “ PEPtBO President Peter Fuller explained.

JC judged the entries and edited the chapbook. “”For the Birds” features poems about songbirds and raptors, waterfowl and scavengers which honour the wonders of nature in the County in a unique way,” she added.

“I thank PEPtBO for this opportunity and appreciate, in particular, how Borys Holowacz’s elegant layout and Peter Fuller’s webmastery contributed to making this fine collection a reality.”

PEPtBO will hold an award ceremony and public reading from “For the Birds” in conjunction with programming during the Spring migration period.

[PEPtBO, a registered charity, has the mandate to monitor and report on bird migration along the South Shore of Prince Edward County. The organization’s volunteers also act as official caretakers of the South Shore Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) through which millions of birds and thousands of Monarch butterflies migrate.]

JC’s poem “Right Here” was chosen by editors Meaghan Strimas and the late Priscila Uppal for this anthology, which was launched by Mansfield Press in Toronto on November 8, 2018 and in Ottawa at the Sawdust Reading Series on November 21.

Written to capture the hopefulness of her mother’s friend, this 5-stanza poem exists in a rich collection that takes cancer on with no holds barred. Not for the faint of heart, these offerings have a life and soul-affirming quality that is surprising.

JC is honoured to have her work appear in “Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology,” which features poetry from well-known and emerging poets.

Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory’s (PEPtBO’s) poetry contest, “For the Birds” closes at on Halloween at midnight.

Prince Edward County poets and visitors are welcome to enter poems in some way related to birds and birdlife on October 31^st.

In January, PEPtBO plans to publish a chapbook of winning poems with photographs taken by local enthusiasts on its website and will celebrate the chapbook launch with prizes for the top poem in each age category (9-16) and adult.

As JC Sulzenko, who serves as contest judge and chapbook editor, explains: “It’s a great way to ring in 2019 by focusing on birds and nature with poems rooted in Prince Edward County.” For full contest details, go to http://peptbo.ca/poetry-contest.php

PEPtBO monitors and reports on bird migration along Prince Edward County’s unique South Shore and acts as official caretaker of the internationally-designated IBA (Important Bird and Biodiversity Area.)

JC led an interactive discussion of why, when and how she writes award-winning poetry under her own name or using a pseudonym.

She read from her collection, South Shore Suite…Poems, which Point Petre publishing in Prince Edward County published in late 2017 (pointpetrepublishing.ca) and gave an overview of her experimental writing and experience in judging poetry contests and in editing.

She also responded to questions about her use of the pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss and about the challenges of writing for children. Participants used the occasion to pour over her books and even to purchase copies.

JC thanks Abbotsford House for the opportunity to speak to its members.

What’s the theme for poems for the November “Poetry Quarter” with a deadline of midnight, October 19, 2018?

“The pivotal. The gamechanger.

“To turn on a pivot, to ricochet off in a new direction, to live a pivotal moment that changes everything.”

Or does it?

Open to poets in the NCR who write in English. Go to www.glebe report.ca for submission guidelines.

Ontario poets joined together to celebrate the legacy of Canada’s Confederation Poets on Sunday, October 14 at the Old Ottawa South Community Centre for the Poets’ Pathway awards in response to the 2018 Lampman Challenge. Each winning poem related in some way to Ottawa and to Archibald Lampman’s sonnet,”Winter Uplands,” written in 1899. Poets’ Pathway Press released the chapbook of winning poems at the event.

The Poets’ Pathway honours Ottawa’s 19^th Century poets on the land that inspired them. Copies of the chapbook are available through the Poets’ Pathway (poetspathway.ca) for $10 each.

JC’s found poem, “Winter@Uplands,” sourced from Lampman’s sonnet and submitted under her pseudonym (A. Garnett Weiss), received Honourable Mention in the competition.

Poets’ Pathway committee members Jane Moore, Ben Glossop and Carolyn Malchy organized a full and satisfying afternoon which began with the presentation of awards. Participating poets read their work, and Ronnie R. Brown hosted an open mic session.

Music by Ben Glossop and by Noah Landers provided moments for reflection. Excellent nibbles created by Carolyn Best spiced up the proceedings.

Contest judge and chapbook editor JC Sulzenko welcomed many fine entries from Prince Edward County poets and visitors. She is in the process of selecting poems for the collection and in contacting the poets who submitted their work. “We received poems of such quality. I look very forward to seeing them in print.”

PEPtBO monitors and reports on bird migration along the County’s unique South Shore and acts as official caretaker of the IBA (Important Bird and Biodiversity Area.)

In January, PEPtBO plans to publish For the Birds, a chapbook of winning poems with photographs taken by local enthusiasts, on its website and to celebrate the chapbook launch with a prize for the top poem. The winner will be announced upon publication of the virtual chapbook.

JC explains.”It’s a great way to ring in the winter of 2019 by focusing on birds and nature with poems rooted in the County.” For questions about the contest, write to: info@peptbo.ca.

JC  welcomed the September 21 launch of the Alzheimer Society of Prince Edward Island’s awareness campaign that features her book What My Grandma Means to Say and materials related to it, including the one-act play from which the book is derived. This website features a video performance of the play, as well as a PDF of the Discussion Guide which can be downloaded for free.

This is the third year the Society has used JC’s story for elementary school-aged children and their families in its educational outreach programs. Here’s the link to local media coverage at the start of the new school year: http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/local/pei-campaign-aims-to-empower-individuals-and-family-members-of-alzheimers-243712/

JC explains: “I wrote the story and the play to encourage discussion among children and their families about dementia when it affects someone dear to them.

“So often,  adults find it hard to include kids in conversations about health issues. The story and the play enable the openness so important to children who otherwise may feel left out in the cold. Reading it gives children the chance to learn more about dementia and to develop their own strategies for coping with changes that affect their relationship with someone living with such diseases and conditions.

“I wish success to the Alzheimer Society of PEI’s campaign in schools in 2018-2019 and am very happy that What My Grandma Means to Say plays a part  in it.”

The August “Poetry Quarter” in The Glebe Report released on August 17 features eight poets with unique ‘takes’ on the theme of water. The submission call referred to water as critical to sustaining life and as one of the ancient Greeks’ four elements that make up the world.Up 60% of the human body consists of water.

“Such a long, hot, humid summer made this theme a fine choice for August,” curator JC Sulzenko explained. “I can’t resist saying we received poems that covered the ‘waterfront!’

“We welcomed submissions from well-known local poets, such as Michelle Desbarats and Carol A. Stephen, from poets new to “Poetry Quarter,” and from contributors whose work we have published on other occasions.”

Print copies of the paper are available throughout the Glebe. Here’s the link to the online page to paste into your browser:    http://www.glebereport.ca/2018/08/poetry-quarter-7/

What’s the theme for poems for the November “Poetry Quarter” with a deadline of midnight, October 19, 2018.

The pivotal. The gamechanger.

“To turn on a pivot, to ricochet off in a new direction, to live a pivotal moment that changes everything.

“There’s no turning back. Or is there?”

To preview the opening of County CollAboRaTive, arts commentator Vanessa Pandos interviews JC and artist Richard Leach who designed the chapbook that captures this 25th Anniversary ekphrastic project for the Prince Edward County Studio Tour.

On Friday July 13, tune in at 12: 30 PM to 99.3 FM or listen live on the device of your choice.

Photo credit: Ramesh Pooran

JC is delighted her poetry plays a part in the Prince Edward County (PEC) Studio Tour’s 25^th Anniversary year celebration. The Tour takes place in September throughout the County.

At the art show and book launch on Friday July 13 at Bloomfield’s Town Hall, JC read aloud her two poems which evolved from artwork by members of the Studio Tour. “Lens,” based on Richard Leach’s mixed media-gliclee print,  “The Space Between,” and “Where Chagall met Gaugin and Dali,” arising from Holly Sedgwick’s acrylic “Sun Dance,” appear in the commemorative book published to mark this unique ekphrastic collaboration between County artists and writers.

Coverage of the event is featured at http://www.countylive.ca/art-meets-the-written-word-in-county-collaborative/

Another chance to see this work followed on the weekend of August 11-12 at Wellington’s Town Hall.

Photo credit: Ramesh. JC

“This is my second opportunity to write poems that evolve from artwork by County artists. I was honoured to co-curate Ekphrasis at Blizzmax Gallery in 2016 and truly welcome such creative synergies in my writing life. Patrons will be able to purchase copies of the book with reproductions of each piece of art in the show and read for themselves how county poets and writers responded in ways which complement/compliment them,” JC explained. “The cost of the book with full-colour reproductions is $20 and makes a fine souvenir of the County.”

Here’s the link for further information on the exhibition and book: https://pecstudiotour.com/whats-on/

Preview Changes

Preview Changes

Lynn Pickering’s Sunday July 8 program, The County Writes/The County Reads, featured a 20-minute interview on how and why JC came to write the play “What My Grandma Means to Say” and then the book for children/families about Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

The program aired on 99.3 County FM after the noon news.

This website has information on the tools designed to give children the opportunity to learn about Alzheimer’s and what strategies they and their families can develop when dementia affects someone in their circle.

The website also gives free access to a video of the play performed by PECI students for elementary schools in Prince Edward County in 2010 as part of the educational outreach programs of the then Alzheimer Society of Prince Edward County. The Discussion Guide, also available free on this website, contains the play’s script. JC is updating its Q’s and A’s and welcomes the assistance of the Alzheimer Society of Hastings-Prince Edward in this review.

We lose our mothers

Not on street corners

or in parks or grocery stores

though we may be mislaid

Today, I wear a dead-woman’s coat

Not my mother’s

Hers were too large

I lost myself in their embrace

as I combed through her clothes

their old-woman scent still strong on

what she wore until she couldn’t stand to dress

I pushed deeper into that closet, touched

garments she chose in middle age to flatter

her long legs, to hide her extra layers

Then Channel No. 5™assaulted me

I rushed outside

onto the balcony that

overlooks the city

breathed in that view

just as she did

until she could not

Shelter, home, homelessness…

Serious subject matter for Poetry Quarterin the May issue of the Glebe Report.

Cut and paste this link into your browser to access the page published on May 11.  http://www.glebereport.ca/2018/05/poetry-quarter-6/

JC curates the selection from local poets and found this quarter’s offering rich.“We received many, fine poems.  A connection to home came into sharp and soft focus in a number of them. Street people figured in others.

“We were honoured to receive such sensitive and original work from poets whose poems have not appeared in PQ before and from other writers Glebe Report readers will recognize from previous issues.“

A call for submissions for the August Poetry Quarterhas just been announced. It’s all about water—critical to life; one of the Ancient’s four elements that make up the world; around 60% of the human body.

PQ seeks poems that will make readers “sink or swim.”

“Climate change, days or nights by a shore, access to clean drinking water, tears of laughter or sorrow—I cannot wait to learn what local poets will say.”

The deadline for the August issue is midnight, Friday July 27, 2018. Submission guidelines appear at: http://www.glebereport.ca/2018/05/poetry-quarter-6/

On Tuesday, June 5 at 7:30 PM, JC Sulzenko read selections from her poetry collection, South Shore Suite…POEMS, published by Point Petre Publishing. www.pointpetrepublishing.ca

JC welcomed the SRO audience and thanked publisher Brian Flack for coming to celebrate this first full collection of her narrative and lyrical poems. She also thanked Octopus Books for its gracious hosting of the event.

JC explained how the book contains poems written over the course of her adult life. The collection takes its title from its first section, with poems rooted in the nature and landscape of Prince Edward County, about which she wrote and which she posted a line-a-day for over a year on this website. Its second section brings a wider lens to the natural world, while the third part of the book includes poems on life choices made by people in diverse professions, from carpenter to composer, from lightkeeper to librarian.

“I held interviews in Ottawa and elsewhere with people I knew and sought out others whose line of work interested me. South Shore Suite…POEMS offers samples from both categories. One of the people in these poem portraits was at the Ottawa launch. Recognizable or incognito, do you think?”

The collection concludes with poems that illuminate moments ‘from cradle to grave.’

Why did Point Petre publisher Brian Flack choose this particular book? “To me, many poems in South Shore Suite use language beautifully and capture the universality of experience in an accessible way, which is not often apparent in contemporary poetry.”

This award-winning Glebe poet and writer is well known through her workshops and poetry residencies for emerging, young writers. She has published six books for children.What My Grandma Means to Say takes a child by the hand and explores how to handle dementia in the family. She also writes centos and found poetry for which she uses a pseudonym.

This summer JC’s work will be featured in County CollAboRaTive, the 25^thAnniversary celebration of the Prince Edward County Studio Tour, and she takes part as a guest artist in the Redenersville Road Art Tour on Labour Day weekend.

With Carleton Place poet Carol A. Stephen, she has co-authored two chapbooks, Breathing Mutable Air and Slant of Light. Together, they seek a publisher for their new collection of ekphrastic poems inspired by works of art.

Copies of South Shore Suite…POEMS are for sale in Ottawa at Octopus Books, 116 Third Avenue http://octopusbooks.ca, as well as at Perfect Books. Singing Pebble Books and Books on Beechwood. In Prince Edward County, Books and Company, The Local  Store and Half Moon Bay Winery carry the collection.

Glebe Report Editor Liz McKeen asks this question: is shelter a right?

The May Poetry Quarter will feature poems by local poets that touch on themes of home, shelter, or homelessness.

JC  Sulzenko, who curates the quarterly collection, looks forward to what these writers consider in approaching notions of belonging or being outsiders.

Cut and paste the following link to reach the Glebe Report’s home page for details on submissions DUE BY MIDNIGHT, Friday, April 20, 2018.      http://www.glebereport.ca

“Where, watching life through windows” appeared online in this April offering from the League of Canadian Poets. The cento originally appeared in Oratorealis in 2017 and draws lines unaltered from poems by George Barker, Louis MacNeice,  Dylan Thomas,David Gascoyne, Ronal Bottrall, Edith Sitwell, Cecil Day Lewis, Ezra Pound, William Epsom, and Stephen Spender.

Here is the link to paste in your browser to access the post:

http://poets.ca/2018/04/17/npm18-fresh-voices-norma-kerby-martha-swinn-a-garnett-weiss/

Using the pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss for found poetry and centos gives JC Sulzenko the distance she needs to distinguish such experimental forms from the narrative and lyrical poems she writes using her own name.

JC was delighted by the lively discussion that included a romp through selections of poems from Rupi Kaur’s two, best-seller collections of poems.

JC read from her first, full poetry collection, South Shore Suite…POEMS, which came out in November (www.pointpetrepublishing.ca) and touched on aspects of her writing life from works for children to self-publishing, from writing collaboratively to assuming a pseudonym.
When asked about writing collaboratively,  JC revealed “it’s 85% pleasure, 15% pain.”

She has been working together with Carleton Place poet Carol A. Stephen for about 5 years. They have published two chapbooks, Breathing Mutable Air and Slant of Light, the latter all poems inspired by works of art.

“Carol and I are finalizing the manuscript of a full collection of ekphrastic poems to send out to publishers.” The works from which these poems depart include sculpture, multimedia, textile and visual art.

J.C. Sulzenko’s South Shore Suite: poetry to celebrate

review by Deborah Tunney

J.C. Sulzenko tells us in the introduction to her soulful and varied poetry collection, South Shore Suite … POEMS, that the inspiration to gather her poems together from the past four decades was Canada’s sesquicentennial celebration. These poems not only celebrate this Canadian milestone but also one Canadian woman’s life, her appreciation of nature, her empathetic recording of other lives and her awareness of time’s passing.

To do this, she divides the collection into four segments, the first and second being a meditation on the role of nature in a life spent in observation and appreciation, the third illustrates her keen observation of character in a segment appropriately entitled “Cameo Appearances,” and in the fourth she looks at aspects of time, creating a sense of closure for the collection as a whole.

Sulzenko sees in nature and in particular the landscape of Prince Edward County, the symmetry and wide, overarching beauty that defines and limits our lives. Many of her poems are inspired by the quiet certainty of haiku, by its ability to slow life to an image that points to the miraculous and capture the frozen essence of a moment. Her touch here is gentle and fine, and perfect for the intent of poem:

it’s alright, okay
to become much like the sand:
water-weary, sun-bleached
reduced to grains that glimmer
as waves advance and waves withdraw.

One of the longer poems of the first section gives us the demise of a man in the very nature that the poet has glorified. His death stills the beauty – this place where he can “find no wonder” so that by morning he is reduced to “an object to recover with a boat and body bag.” The language here shifts from the wonder of nature to the blunt and painful reality of death, and it is this shift that stops readers and makes them, with a renewed reverence, appreciate the encompassment of nature, holding both life and death.

Although the poet’s approach in “Cameo Appearances” is to give us unique personalities, the underlying questions and concerns are the same as in the rest of the collection: the meaning, appreciation and mystery of life. Listen to the economy of this poem as it paints with quick, deft strokes a portrait of a doctor:

Morning
Coat off, computer on, patients
questions, examination, diagnosis, injections

Afternoon
Prescription, referrals, reports
No excuse if she runs late

These are the moments that occupy a life, give it its shape and resonance. In the poem “Light on Bay,” Sulzenko gives us an empty lighthouse, bereft of keepers, as a soulless entity: “those lighthouses, empty now, still shine/a safe course for ships, but without a soul”. This poem is an exploration of the family that lived there, of the era that allowed that life choice and both are strikingly eulogized in the calm sadness captured by those closing words.

One of the most poignant poems in the last section chronicles the loss, through euthanasia, of a beloved pet. It describes in almost clinical terms what the vet must do, but ends with the human need for comfort. “He returns to the living room/Places his hand on the spot/where she died/Still warm.” It is here that Sulzenko is at her strongest. She leads us with fine, careful but stripped-down language to a place where we must contemplate the savage, uncompromising emptiness that remains.

The poems in the first section and half of the second are not titled or numbered and the resulting sense of flow and inclusion will either make the reader feel the unity of the work or be annoyed by its formlessness. I found it on first reading a bit disorienting, a feeling that lessened with each reading as I came to appreciate how each poem leads to the next and leans on its neighbouring poem for increased poignancy. However, a small quibble with the book production: the font was a sans serif, which I did not enjoy, and the kerning for certain words seemed clumsy.

This is a collection that rewards the reader with its careful, precise and often-beautiful rendition of those elements in life that enclose us: nature, other people and the progress of time. As she writes: “when it falls to death, the line between/what’s real and what you hope for/breaks you.”

As readers we thank Sulzenko for honouring Canada’s 150th by gathering her poems into this enlightening collection and for her clear-sighted vision of our human condition.

Deborah-Anne Tunney is a former communication officer and a writer of both prose and poetry whose work has appeared in many literary journals.

South Shore Suite … POEMS,
by JC Sulzenko
Point Petre Publishing, 2017 (Milford, Ontario)
Available at Octopus Books (116 Third Ave.), Singing Pebble Books (206 Main St), Books on Beechwood (35 Beechwood), Perfect Books (258 Elgin), from the publisher and www.jcsulzenko.com.

“I was very pleased to assist the Observatory (PEPtBO) in bringing out this second annual booklet, which highlights events around and about the County’s South Shore that celebrate its unique habitats, flora and fauna, and history,” JC noted. (She serves on PEPtBO’s Board.)

This is the second year JC worked on the project, which lists some 24 events ranging from bird walks, excursions and tours to a 100 km. bicycle ride, from fish fries to graveyard walks, from fishing derbies to fossil hunts.

“Nature Matters!” has been published online at www.peptbo.ca. 7000 hard copies of the glossy book will be available throughout the County starting in April.

The booklet also launched a poetry contest for a chapbook PEPtBO will publish on its website.”For the Birds” invites poets aged 9-16 and adult poets living in or visiting the County to send in poems that relate in some way to birds native to the County or migrating through it. Specific information on the contest appears in “Nature Matters!” on line and in print.

(PEPtBO is a not-for-profit, registered charity with a focus on monitoring and providing information on populations of migrating birds at since Edward Point National Wildlife Area during spring and fall. PEPtBO acts as official caretaker for the Prince Edward County South Shore Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA), designated as globally significant and comprised of over 40 kilometres of Lake Ontario shoreline and 90 square kilometres of land and water habitats.)

BOXING DAY COLOURS

Three black pigeons found solace

in the too-warm puddles

They alone had not dreamt of a white Christmas

Did not regret the grim, gray slush

that bequeathed lines of salt to new leather boots

still stiff from packages, now crushed and

stuffed along with blue reindeer wrapping

and rivers of silver ribbon

into bulging green garbage bags

at the curb

of a new year

Listen to Lynn Pickering’s feature interview with JC about South Shore Suite…Poems on her weekly program “The County Writes…The County Reads” on Sunday, December 10 right after the newscast at noon.

Go to http://993countyfm.ca to live stream the program from the FM station that speaks with the ‘voice’ of Prince Edward County, Ontario.

This first collection of JC’s poetry takes its title from its lead section, “South Shore Suite, ” with poems rooted in her experience at the County’s fragile south shore. “I committed to posting a line-a-day of poetry on my website for over a year, and the poems in “South Shore Suite” are the result of that undertaking,” JC explains.

During the interview, JC has the opportunity to read a few poems from the collection and openly discuss why poetry matters to her.

An enthusiastic crowd attended the November 18 launch of South Shore Suite, JC’s first collection of poetry from Point Petre Publishing. Hosted by Books and Company, 289 Main St. in Picton, the event featured a reading by JC, fine wines generously offered by Half Moon Bay Winery, nibbles, and brisk book sales.

“The launch was exactly as I hoped it would be: the chance for poetry-lovers, friends and neighbours to celebrate the release of this collection and become acquainted with my work. I chose to read five poems from the collection to give a taste of each of the sections of the book, which begins with the “South Shore Suite” that lends the book its title. The “Suite” consists of poems rooted in nature at Prince Edward County’s south shore and influenced by forms of Japanese poetry, such as haiku and tankas.”

The story in November 15th’s The Wellington Times profiled South Shore Suite. Cut and paste this link into your browser to read the article.http://wellingtontimes.ca/the-right-words/

Lynn Pickering’s interview with JC on The County Writes, The County Reads aired on 99.3FM Picton after the noon news on either December 3 or December 10, 2017.

Go to the icon on the right of this website (www.jcsulzenko.com) for information on how to order the book from JC or from the publisher, Point Petre Publishing. Books and Company in Picton also stocks the book. (http://pictonbookstore.com)

Point Petre Publishing (PPP) launches JC Sulzenko’s first full collection of poetry in Picton, Ontario, on Saturday afternoon, November 18, 2017.

South Shore Suite cover

Prince Edward County publisher Brian Flack gives his reasons for electing to publish JC’s lyric and narrative poetry in PPP’s inaugural publishing program. “In our current political climate, the need for ‘something’ that speaks to the unspoiled uniqueness of the southernmost reaches of our County was not just needed, it was demanded!

“Rendered in language that is evocative of place, time, and sensation–yet straightforwardly affecting, many of the poems will transport you body and soul to the South Shore of the County, addressing head-on, as they do, issues both natural and ‘man-made’. These poems will inspire in any reader a wondrous appreciation for the area’s land, its birds, the water …”

JC responds. “I am honoured PPP chose South Shore Suite for this publishing season and gratified that poems in this collection turn the spotlight on Prince Edward County’s fragile South Shore. My work also speaks to the power of life-cycle events, whether mundane or momentous.”

The 100-page book takes its title from the first of its four sections, which contains poems rooted in the landscape of Prince Edward County and posted a line-a-day over the course of more than a year. Its second section brings a wider lens to the natural world. Poetry that reflects on life choices made by people in diverse professions comprises the third part of the book. The collection concludes with poems closest to JC’s personal experience on subjects ‘from cradle to grave.’ County artist Susan Straiton created the arresting cover art.

The launch takes place from 4:00-6:00 PM on Saturday, November 18, 298 Main Street, upstairs in the Lipson Room in Picton. JC will read from the collection at 4:30 PM.

JC serves on the Board of the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory (PEPtBO) and will donate a Loonie for every copy of South Shore Suite sold at the launch to PEPtBO.

For further information about the book and the event, email pointpetrepublishing@gmail.com.

`

BC-based Oratorealis, which focuses on spoken word and experimental poetry in a triannual literary journal, published two centos by A. Garnett Weiss in Volume 2/Issue 2, which came out at the end of the summer.

“Reflection, stained glass” welcomes lines from poets such as Toi Derricotti, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Brenda Hillman and Alicia Suskin Ostriker. “Where, watching life through windows”* takes its words from poems by some of the greats of the 20th century, including Dylan Thomas, Ezra Pound and Stephen Spender.

Weiss finds great joy in creating centos. “Living with the poems I read until individual lines or partial lines dictate the way a new work, original in form and meaning, evolves is an exciting and humbling process. Each piece both pays homage to and honours the poems from which the lines have been selected. There such such energy inherent in crafting poems in the cento form.”

*The title of this poem regrettably was misprinted in Oratorealis.

JC gives this 2006 novel by prolific master of the ‘dark’ Swedish tale, Henning Mankell, 7/5/10 even though she couldn’t put the book down. Why? Go to Bookends to read her mini-review.

JC reviews Maria Semple’s national bestseller (US), “Where’d You Go, Bernadette.” Go to Bookends at www.jcsulzenko.com to read her low-down on the 2012 novel.

Garnett’s prose poem “When Johnny came marching” appears online in the newest series from Silver Birch Press (SBP) in California.

This is how Garnett described her creative process: “I’m always intrigued by subjects Silver Birch Press suggests for a series. I read the cue, then waken as though from a dream to revisit experiences I hadn’t thought of in many, many years. The title for “When Johnny came marching,” comes in part from a war song. The song led me to recapture in prose poem form rather than in free verse circumstances and details around the disappearance of my favourite doll when I was five years-old and to situate that doll in my life today. I am grateful for the prompt.”

The photo, which complements this poem, shows Johnny still in Garnett’s hands and favour.

Here’s the link to Silver Birch Press:

https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/when-johnny-came-marching-poem-by-a-garnett-weiss-lost-and-found-poetry-and-prose-series/

From 3:00-5:30 PM, Saturday March 11, Garnett joined Toronto writer and event host Lee Parpart and other contributors to the Nancy Drew Anthology, plus special guests emcee Liz Gruening-Hay, Angela Misri and Melanie J. Fishbane to celebrate this new collection of poems, artwork, short stories, and memoirs inspired by the forever-young-woman sleuth.

Geared to adults and to appeal to kids grades four and up, the afternoon entertained the enthusiastic audience with readings from the anthology published by California-based Silver Birch Press (SBP.) Each speaker shared anecdotes about her own connection to and love of all things Nancy Drew, whose mystery series was published over a period of 80+ years and enjoyed by multiple generations.

Garnett first read four poems by international contributors to the anthology and then focused on the work of Canadian poets in the anthology. She explained that SPB published her erasure poem, “With original mystery,” which extracts words in the order in which they appear from the list of Nancy Drew book titles on the inside title page of “The Hidden Staircase”, released in 1939. Instead of reading “With original mystery,” she shared her found poem, “Siren,” now posted her website. “Siren” uses non-contiguous, unaltered phrases from “The Secret of Mirror Bay,” published in 1972.

The afternoon’s festivities included prizes and a book sale. Copies of the anthology are available from Silver Birch Press and Amazon.

JC returns for the second year to curate “Poetry Quarter(PQ)” in the Glebe Report. For 2017, rather than collect and bank poems throughout the year, PQ will tailor calls to specified themes for each issue. 

Full details of the call for submissions for the February, 2017, PQ appear on the home page of January’s Glebe Report at www.glebereport.ca.

Open for the first time to any poet writing in English who reads the Glebe Report and lives in the National Capital Region, February will celebrate Canada’s sesquicentennial through poems on subjects relevant to the people, history, culture, present and future of the Glebe and its neighbouring communities. Here are the basic guidelines. Poems should be:

• Original, unpublished in any medium (plus not submitted elsewhere)
• Up to 30 lines
• On any aspect of the theme within the bounds of public discourse
• By poets of all ages (school-age poets, please include your grade level)
• Submitted by January 20 to: editor@glebereport.ca. (Please include contact info.)

JC has been reading steadily but not caught up on her mini-reviews, which use up to the same number of words as characters for a tweet. Go to “Bookends” to read her review of Prince Edward County author, poet and artist Peter Blendell’s “Jonagold,” published in 2014.

From time to time, I revisit this poem after the frenzy of activity and gift-giving/receiving because of how it captures for me the inevitable, annual letdown, even as celebrations around the new year add add an upbeat quality to the season. So here again is the piece.

Boxing Day Colours

Three black pigeons found solace

in the too-warm puddles

They alone had not dreamt of a white Christmas

Did not regret the grim gray slush

that bequeathed lines of salt to new leather boots

still stiff from packages, now crushed, stuffed

along with blue reindeer wrapping

and rivers of silver ribbon

into bulging green garbage bags

at the curb

of a new year

Editor Jenny O’Grady paired Garnett with Maryland artist Gina Pierleoni as co-contributors to the 28^th issue of the online journal “The Light Ekphrastic, ” now celebrating its 7^th anniversary.

Garnett chose The Deepest Sleep from among the extraordinary works of art on the website featuring Pierleoni’s art– http://ledbaltimore.com/featured-on-the-board/gina-pierleoni/. “Given the range of work Gina exhibited, so much of her art called to me, but the instant I saw The Deepest Sleep, I had to write to it. Surrender is the result,” Garnett noted.

“My poems have appeared before in “The Light Ekphrastic,” and I am grateful to the editor for publishing them in this fine journal. It’s always an adventure when I embark on a new partnership with an artist who will interpret my poetry and whose art will prompt me to write a new poem. I never know what to expect of the artist or of myself. That is the ‘magic’ of the ekphrastic process. That’s why I welcome opportunities to be surprised by each, such collaboration.“

In response to Garnett’s poem For Nathan Cirillo, soldier, Gina created Lamentation, a poignant collage that captures indelibly the relationship between the soldier’s death and an aged mother’s response. Here’s where to find these works: https://thelightekphrastic.com/2016/11/25/november-2016-issue-28/

For the second time, Garnett’s centos took top honours in The Banister, the annual anthology featuring “ an eclectic mix of Ontario voices,” in the words of Poetry Chair Keith Inman.Here’s what award-winning poet and author Keith Garebian, who judged the entries, wrote: ” Never mind the first unicorn is an expert cento—a form that is a level ahead of the found poem as a poetic mode because its inspiration comes from multiple poetic sources. For a good cento, the poet’s mind must never merely wander across quotations. It needs to keep a firm focus on unity of theme, tone and rhythm—which this one does superbly, using surprising images in order to channel the poet’s melancholy reflection.”

“I am most grateful to Keith Garebian for these comments, which align closely with what I set out to accomplish in each cento I compose, “ Garnett noted. “I find joy in this form of poetry, Though considered by some poets and editors as ‘experimental,’ writing centos has become my mainstream.”

Never mind the first unicorn received second prize. Honourable mentions went to We lie down in each other, we lie down alone, and to The only song I know.

Garnett’s cento Nothing is eternal. Not even the trees won the 2013 contest judged by Gregory Betts. He also awarded honourable mentions to Against a guttering candle, written dreams and to Psyche.

Go to the Bookends tab for JC’s most recent review of Rupinder Gill’s 2011 memoire, “On the Outside Looking Indian.” She gives it a 6.5/10 rating.

For kids of many generations, Nancy Drew mysteries by Carolyn Keene hooked them on reading. Whenever a new book came out, the local bookstore (and there were several independent! bookstores in my neighbourhood!) would sell out very quickly, as young readers couldn’t wait to follow their favourite sleuth as she unravelled threads of the next puzzle.

Garnett is pleased that Silver Birch Press of California chose her erasure poem “With original mystery” for the anthology, published on October 1. This poem extracts words from titles of Nancy Drew books in the order they appeared on the the page preceding the inside title page of “The Hidden Staircase,” published in 1930 and reprinted in 1995. The poem and the page showing the erasures both appear in the collection.

Copies of the anthology will be available through the publisher and from Amazon.com. The publisher’s price per volume is $15. Here’s the link to Silver Birch Press’s release:

https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/new-release-nancy-drew-anthology/

Garnett’s second poem arising from Nancy Drew sources has been posted under the A. Garnett Weiss tab. “Siren” uses non-contiguous phrases, taken unaltered from”Nancy Drew: The Secret of Mirror Bay,” published in 1972.

JC is thrilled that the Alzheimer Society of Prince Edward Island (ASPEI) chose to anchor its 2016-2017 education program in schools with “What My Grandma Means to Say,” JC’s play and storybook for children and families about Alzheimer’s disease.

With the province’s Department of Education and input from JC, ASPEI developed a resource kit for teachers which puts a copy of the book, plus JC’s Discussion Guide, into every elementary school in the Province. Here’s a link to the CBC’s report:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-alzheimer-students-education-book-1.3773649

“As I wrote in my op. ed. piece published by papers across Canada (go to the Archive table to read the article), I feel it’s essential for kids to be part of the discussion when Alzheimer’s affects someone they know and about whom they care. Understanding what they can and cannot hope for is one way to get at the fears this disease raises,” JC believes.

A number of Alzheimer Societies in Ontario incorporated “What My Grandma Means to Say” into their programming. With the new program launched on September 21, World Alzheimer’s Day, PEI’s Alzheimer Society is the first to take “What My Grandma Means to Say” province-wide.

“I look very forward to whatever feedback comes my way from the use of this story and play in schools. I know that having an open and safe environment to talk about Alzheimer’s can really build awareness and dispel myths, without sugarcoating what people living with the disease face.”

JC responded to the Partners in Flight report in the Globe on the large decline in bird populations with a scathing indictment of governments that site industrial wind turbines in environmentally sensitive areas on bird migration routes and in habitats of endangered species, such as the Blandings turtle. The Editor included a verse from “Spectacle,” for which is she is grateful. The verses first appeared on this site. Here it is:

Dead birds cannot sing,

their melodies lost to winds

that rouse high towers

to our great hades of steel

that churn songs and soft feathers.

Here’s the link to the edition:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/letters/sept-17-whats-policy-got-to-do-with-the-us-election-plus-other-letters-to-the-editor/article31930945/

Go to Bookends to read JC’s review of Plum Johnson’s 2015 memoire, “They Left Us Everything,” which won the Charles Taylor 2015 Prize for Non-fiction. A review and rating with reservations.

Again, it gives JC a kick to keep her reviews within the same number of words as twitter allows characters per tweet. Focuses the mind. Adds discipline. Makes her not yak on and on with thoughts about a book.

Go to Bookends to read JC’s review of J.D. Carpenter’s 2016 mystery, “The County Murders.” She gave it 8/10!

Go to “Bookends” to read JC Sulzenko’s mini-review of Chris Cleave’s 2008 novel, “Little Bee.” Why does she give this best-seller only a 7/10 rating? See for yourself.

Here’s the link to the Niagara CAA’s website which lists the 2016 winners. Three of Garnett’s centos were awarded top prizes. “Never mind the first unicorn” took 2nd Prize and “We lie down in each other, we lie down alone,” and “The only song I know” gained honourable mentions. “This is the second time my centos have been favoured in this contest. I am grateful to Judge Keith Garebian for favouring my work with these awards,” Garnett confirmed.

http://canauthorsniagara.org/poetry-contest/

This ekphrasis show at BLIZZMAX Gallery in Prince Edward County that JC co-curated with Alice Menacer closes on July 24. Featuring works of art inspired by poetry and poetry inspired by works of art, the show paired nine local artists with  nine local poets.

“I am thrilled with the feedback received about the show from gallery visitors and the artists and poets who participated. A good number of the works of art sold which is also a measure of the quality of the exhibition. My thanks to Alice and Peter Mennacher for embracing the concept, ” JC noted.

Ekphrasis at BLIZZMAX included sculpture, multimedia and visual art. A copy of the poem that either gave rise to each artwork or responded to a work of art was sold with each work of art.

A chapbook with high quality, full-colour reproductions of each work of art and the text of each poem has virtually sold out.

Here’s the link to the story about the show: http://wellingtontimes.ca/developmentApril16/nine-poets-nine-artists/

Finally returning to review some of the readings from the spring. I begin today with the posts under “Bookends” tab of three books in two reviews: See my thoughts on Bill Bryson’s “*A Short History of Everything.” I’m a huge fan of Bryson’s books, and this huge volume didn’t disappoint.

And then look at how I contrast Joseph Boyden’s book “Extraordinary Canadians Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont” with  Gregory Scofield’s “Louis: The Heretic Poems.” Both worth a read.

JC delighted in announcing the winning poems and identifying the poets who entered the winners’ circle at the 21^st Awesome Authors Awards ceremony on March 29 at Centrepoint Theatre, Ottawa.

Then she shared her decision to step down as English poetry judge after more than a decade of serving in this capacity, for which the Ottawa Public Library (OPL) awarded her the Order of Friendship in 2010.

“I love the contest and will remain its biggest fan,” she promised.

She asked everyone who had submitted a poem to the contest in English or French or English and French to raise their hands and declared it awesome that so many emerging writers aged 9-17 had the courage to do so.

In the autumn, winning poems and short stories will be published in the anthology, Pot Pourri. Copies can be ordered directly from The Friends of the Ottawa Public Library.

To honour the poets who won awards this year, JC has created a cento (pronounced ‘sento’), a form of poetry, which uses lines or parts of lines written by different poets and combines them into a poem, which is new in form and meaning. JC (often writing as A. Garnett Weiss) is focusing now on this form, and a number of her centos have been published and won awards.

Ask me anything you want takes lines or parts of lines, unaltered from how they appeared in the winning poems in this year’s Awesome Authors Contest. The gloss links to the source of each line, including the title of the poem and the poet’s name.

Ask me anything you want

Drunk on madness and intoxicating fun,
head spinning, feeling awfully faint,
I wish for you in my dreams,

wishes long forgotten
where all birds sing as if it were the same song
if only they could be heard.

I have too many names, I can’t even count them,
and, having no one to turn to for love,
to withstand any enemy
my candles and matches do nothing to fight against,
something blocks all open gates,

moving with sudden purpose
a mixture of your blood with the waters.
However no one can know except for you and me.
Wherever you go, whomever you meet,
no one understands who we are.

            Cento gloss: Ask me anything you want
             Title: Alyson Moncur-Beer, “Girl Power”
             Line 1: Shannon Noah, “Awakened”
             Line 2: Irine Stripinis, “Fall from Grace”
             Line 3: Maariya Toman, “Breathless”
             Line 4: Julia Dolansyky-Overland, “Lost”
             Line 5: Owen McKibbon, “What’s Around You and Living in Love”
             Line 6: Mitra Dadjoo, “Summer”
             Line 7: Francine Stripinis, “Eternally Cursed”
             Line 8: Kara Cybanski, “The Mistake of Solitude”
             Line 9: Lucy Boyd, “Lily flies”
             Line 10: Belinda Xu, “Pins and Needles”
             Line 11: Maleeka Ellaithy, “Hand in Hand”
             Line 12: Lily Inskip-Shesnicky, “Solo”
             Line 13: Sara Rwentambo, “Creativity”
             Line 14: Leah Sullivan, “The Seamstress”
             Line 15: Shannon Creelman, “Fly like a bird”
             Line 16: Zara Hewson, “Powerless or Powerful”

JC Sulzenko, English poetry judge for the 2016 Awesome Authors contest wants to encourage poetry-lovers of all ages in the region to come out for the awards ceremony honouring the best English and French poems and short stories written by local poets and writers, ages 9-17.

The culminating event of the the 2016 Awesome Authors Contest starts at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, March 29 at Centrepoint Theatre, Ben Franklin Place.

“I really look forward to the ceremony, particularly after having read all the poems submitted in English. What a challenge it was to choose the winning entries!  The quality and impact of the poetry these emerging writers crafted will amaze you, as it did me,” JC guaranteed.

Here’s the link to all the information on the contest. Winning stories and poems will appear in Pot Pourri, the anthology to be published by the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library in the autumn.

https://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/about/awesome-authors

California’s Silver Birch Press (SBP) features Garnett’s recent poem in its new Same Name Series. The poem, based upon Garnett as an undergrad bumping into Leonard Cohen at a university library, goes beyond that moment to capture her evolution into a fan. “I am honoured to be included in this innovative series and thank the editor for choosing this poem,” Garnett states.

The post by SBP includes a photo of Garnett around the time of the incident, plus notes on Garnett’s creative process. Here is the link:

https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/after-ignorance-blessings-poem-by-a-garnett-weiss-same-name-poetry-and-prose-series/

On January 22, JC led a great group of enthusiastic and talented young poets in her one-hour poetry workshop in advance of the Ottawa Public Library’s 2016 Awesome Authors Contest deadline, February 15. The annual contest encourages poets ages 9-17 to submit their original poems and short stories in English or French so that they will have the chance to both win prizes and see winning entries published by the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library in the annual anthology, Pot Pourri.

“Can you run, steer or stumble into writing poems? What makes a poem great?” JC took a vote and everyone agreed that all three ways of getting into a poem can work. She read aloud selected, winning poems from past Awesome Authors contests, plus used hit song titles from this week’s charts, to tackle these questions and others raised by the group. JC’s call to poets 9-17?  “Swamp me with your poems! I can hardly wait to read them!”

For information on the contest, go to the Awesome Authors Contest page on OPL website: https://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/about/awesome-authors

Here’s the OPEN CALL FOR POETRY SUBMISSIONS from poets in Ottawa’s Glebe neighbourhood and surrounding areas for the 2^nd Poetry Quarter, a compilation of poems curated by JC, which appears four times a year in Ottawa’s Glebe Report. The next Poetry Quarter will be issued in the February 2016 Glebe Report. The deadline to submit is January 11, 2016.

Poems should be:

• Original and unpublished in any medium
• No more than 30 lines each, including stanza breaks and title
• On any subject within the bounds of public discourse

The poem or poet must have a connection to the Glebe or close neighbouring community, i.e., the poem must be about the Glebe or the poet must live, work, study or volunteer in the Glebe (or close neighbouring community.)

Poets of all ages are welcome to submit up to 7 poems at a time in one doc. or docx document attachment. Please include your contact information, your connection to the Glebe and your grade if you are in school in your covering email.

Please email submissions to editor@glebereport.ca

Boxing Day Colours

Three black pigeons found solace

in the too-warm puddles

They alone had not dreamt of a white Christmas

Did not regret the grim, gray slush

that bequeathed lines of salt to new leather boots

still stiff from packages, now crushed and

stuffed along with blue reindeer wrapping

and rivers of silver ribbon

into bulging green garbage bags

at the curb

of a new year

A. Garnett Weiss

Best wishes to you all for a healthy, happy 2018 in which peace is given a chance.

When Mike asked JC to write a guest post about poetry for his blog in December, she was delighted.

The piece appeared this week at: https://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/blogs/guest-post-jc-sulzenko-hits-hints-post-about-poetry.

What way did she choose to give tips about how poetry works? She used song titles of the top singles from the week of November 27-December 3. What tips about writing poetry can song titles offer? “It always surprises me that poetry isn’t considered ‘mainstream,’ when songs are poems with music,” JC laments. “Just listen to Adele’s “Hello” as an example. There’s a hit song, made memorable not only for its compelling melody, but for its words which remind me of a ballad.”

“It’s great that I had the chance to write a post for teens and ‘tweens’ now, because the Ottawa Public Library’s 21st Awesome Authors Contest just opened on December 1.” The deadline for submitting short stories and poems in English or French for young writers aged 9-17 is February 15, 2016. Winning entries will be announced in the spring and be published by the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library next fall.

“I sure hope students across our city will swamp the judges with fine poems and stories.” JC returns to judge English poetry entries. Governor General Award winner Caroline Pignat will choose winning stories from 13-17 year-old writers, while Catherine Austen will judge stories by 9-12 year-olds. Sylvie Frigon has poems and stories in French as her focus. Entrants must have a valid OPL card.

The OPL is hosting workshops to give young writers a chance to hear from the judges and ask them questions. JC’s poetry workshop for 9-12 year olds takes place at 10:30 AM on a PD day, January 22, 2016, at Beaverbrook Branch. For information on the other workshops, go to the Awesome Authors Contest page on OPL website: https://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/about/awesome-authors.

JC is a huge fan of emerging poets and authors in the region who participate in the Annual Awesome Authors Contest at the Ottawa Public Library (OPL).

“I am pleased return to judge the English poetry submissions to the 2016 contest which closes in February. The quality of what poets aged 9-17 submit always blows me away. These poets are awesome, indeed.”

Each year, the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Association (FOPLA) publishes an anthology of winning entries entitled “Pot Pourri.” The OPL and FOPLA join in launching the new collection on Thursday, October 22, at 6:30 PM in the downstairs auditorium of the Main Branch on Metcalfe at Laurier.

“This publication celebrates the creativity and courage of these emerging artists. I encourage all participants in the contest, whether past or prospective, to come out and applaud the release of “Pot Pourri!” Copies of the anthology will be available for purchase at the launch and through FOPLA.

This poem first was broadcast on CBC’s program Commentary. JC brings it back to these pages on the eve of Canada’s federal election to BEG voters to turn out and vote.

So much is riding on each riding’s choice. \ JC hopes Canadians know how much each vote counts. Feel free to comment on her poem, “Anthem.”

Anthem

A Mountie sings Oh Canada

A Fine baritone in scarlet

Odd how his stiff brown hat stays put

I strain to hear the others –their singing jumbles off

high glass planes, transparent walls

I make out Des plus brilliants

God keep

Glorious and free

I hear my voice, small in the great room

Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee

I will the words to be true

Fear we are not up to it

Many don’t vote

They squander their choices, our democracy

Grumble at leaders in power almost by default

Our fault, really

Centred in little lives, blind to our need to protect

our country — beautiful, fragile

We ought to know better, to know

what to do for Canada every day

and in times of flood, plague, war and fire
Could someone tell us how

or should we go out there, start somewhere

Work not only for ourselves

but for our Canada

A half hour a day

times the 34 million of us or so

(minus the sick, the too-young)

would sure buy a lot

of standing on guard

JC appeared with Carol A. Stephen to launch their collaborative chapbook, “Breathing Mutable Air” at the pop-up poetry series, Railroad. http://railroad-ottawa.ca. Award-winning poet John Pass previewed poems his new collection of early poems, “Forecast.”

Carol and JC created 17 poems for this chapbook using a variety of structures, for example: in some poems, alternating lines; in others, alternating stanzas. Each poet contributed two of her own poems to the collection. Carol describes the collection this way: “17 poems, 2 poets, 1 voice.”

JC found the experience of writing with Carol enriching. “I found the process to be surprisingly satisfying, at times frustrating, but never dull. We are working on a new chapbook of ekphrastic poems in which each poem arises from a work of art in the National Gallery of Canada’s holdings. ”

Their next chapbook, “Slant of Light,” from which JC read three teasers, is in the final editing phase and uses ekphrastic poems to explore artwork held by the National Gallery of Canada.

The deadline for submitting poems to be featured in the first of The Glebe Report’s new feature, Poetry Quarter, is October 9, 2015. Here’s the link to the website for specifics on how to submit. http://www.glebereport.ca/2015/08/glebe-report-poetry-quarter/

JC is delighted that the Editor of this community newspaper has chosen to bring a poetry focus to the community four times a year by publishing poems JC will select as ‘curator.’

“Poetry Quarter” welcomes submissions from poets who work, live, study or volunteer in the Glebe in Ottawa or in its close, neighbouring communities on subjects that reflect the lives and sensibilities of people living in this community and that are appropriate for publication in a paper with an audience of all ages.

Poems can be in any form – rhyme, free verse, sonnets, haiku, found poems, etc., but must not be more than 30 lines in length. The work must be the poet’s own and should not have been published before anywhere, in any form or medium.

“As ‘curator,’ I will recommend a number of poems per quarter to the Editor. Poets will be contacted if their work is slated for publication in “Poetry Quarter.” We have already received many fine submissions and look forward to reading what emerging and established poets contribute to this project.”

The Prince Edward County Field Naturalists (PECFN) website now features  JC’s “A voice for the turtle,” her protest poem against the construction of 9 plus 27 industrial wind turbines (each 450 feet high) at the the environmentally fragile south shore of Prince Edward County.

“It’s a travesty: the Government of Ontario willingly supports the construction of these huge wind farms which will destroy species at risk, including the Blandings turtle, and cause irreversible and serious harm to migratory birds and the delicate alvar terrain. All in the name of the toxic Green Energy Act which subsidizes with Ontario taxpayer’s $’s the production of electricity that cannot be stored, that Ontario cannot use and therefore sells at a loss to the US. It’s madness,” JC declares.

The poem is part of JC’s Prince Edward County Suite and first appeared as “Spectacle.” Here’s the link:http://www.saveostranderpoint.org/a-voice-for-the-turtle-a-poets-lament-jc-sulzenko/#sthash.7EBRESkU.dpbs

Ottawa’s Small Press Fair tomorrow saw the launch of the first collaborative chapbook by JC Sulzenko and Carol A. Stephen.

Stephen describes “Breathing Mutable Air “in this way: 17 poems, 2 poets and 1 voice. ”

JC admits it is the first time she has partnered with another poet in writing such poetry together. “This has been a rich experience for me. I believe the poems we wrote together carry a distinct identity, unaffected by what we craft when we write as individuals. I enjoyed the challenge so much. It’s no surprise that I look forward to seeing how the next collaborative work, now underway, will unfold.”

The Chapbook, published by BC’s Nose in Book Publishing, costs $10.

“

Silver Birch Press has been running an amazing series with the theme of  “Me as a child.” The quality, depth and variety of poems which have appeared to date bring the series into the realm of  ‘spellbinding’ reading.

Among the offerings which appear today is Garnett’s “Solo for a princess.” Garnett is honoured to have this poem published in this series. Here’s the link. https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/solo-for-a-princess-by-a-garnett-weiss-me-as-a-child-poetry-series/

JC is delighted that her poem, “City Garden, ” appears in a NEW poetry anthology for children eight to twelve years of age, “Dear Tomato,” which was launched in Montreal on Sunday, March 29. “Dear Tomato: An International Crop of Food and Agriculture Poems” can be ordered NOW through Amazon.ca. Here’s the link: http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=%22Dear+Tomato%22

“This collection offers children and families something novel, as its subtitle suggests. I am happy that editor Carol-Ann Hoyte included my poem about a rabbit and a pansy flower in the same back yard. It’s one of my favourites!” JC claims.

Here’s what’s said about the anthology on the book’s back cover: “Featuring a wide assortment of styles, from haiku to acrostics to free verse, these poems touch on topics that range from lighthearted to seriously thought-provoking. Whether the focus of the poem is a child’s battle over eating peas or a celebration of fair trade, this collection introduces kids to a fresh, new view of where their food comes from… Throughout the anthology, each entry’s words and ideas are brought to life by Norie Wasserman’s stunning black-and-white photographs…”

And here’s a fine quote from Kenn  Nesbitt, US Children’s Poet laureate (2013-2015): “From farm to market, from garden to table, and from fork to mouth “Dear Tomato” serves up a bumper crop of delicious (and healthful!) poems that are sure to leave you hungry for more.”

Further information about the anthology can be found at  https://www.createspace.com/4947475

Here’s the link to Garnett’s “Through My Window,” published on March 10 by Silver Birch Press. http://Silverbirchpress.wordpress.com as part of its series entitled “Where I live.”

Garnett is delighted that the editor chose a photograph of the Rideau Canal in winter to complement the poem occasioned by Ottawa, Canada, having  the dubious distinction of being the coldest capital in the world on one frigid day in February.

How does a piece of poetry inspire an artist? What does a poet take from a work of art? That process is what lies at the core of the on-line journal, The Light Ekphrastic.  Its February issue features two poems by A. Garnett Weiss, linked to two works of art by Isabelle P. Laureta. http://thelightekphrastic.com

“The selection process is ‘blind'”, says Weiss. “That’s its charm. I submitted a few poems to the Editor and heard that my work had been selected and would be forwarded to the artist with whom the editor linked me. In return, I would receive a number of artworks by that artist.

“It was left to each of us to select to which piece we would respond. Neither Isabelle nor I knew what the response would be until we saw the journal published.”

Garnett’s poem, “Woman of Ice, Woman of Glass” inspired Laureto to create the image of a woman that is striking in its use of lush tropical flowers, water, and crystals. In turn, Garnett’s poem “Antigua” riffs off Isabelle’s portrait of a woman floating among Men-of-War jelly fish to address matters of the heart.

“I have never had the opportunity to work with an artist in this reciprocal way before. I’m hooked and look forward to other such collaborations.”

Garnett thanked the editor of The Light Ekphrastic and Isabelle Laureta for the experience.

Just one more day for poets and short story writers to enter the Ottawa Public Library’s Awesome Authors Contest.

Don’t miss this chance to have your work read by professional writers and be considered for up to 6 prizes in each age category, 9-11, 12-14, 15 -17. Winning poems and stories will be published by the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library in the 2015 Pot Pourri anthology.

See the information in the post below for details. I want 500 good poems, please!  And I’m sure my fellow judges Caroline Pignat and Michel Lavoie join me in wishing you each good luck and happy writing!

On January 10 and 16, JC lead workshops for young poets who are thinking about entering the OPL’s 2015 Awesome Authors Contest. The contest, now in its 19^th year, closes on February 16 for both online and hard copy submissions.

Open to writers of poetry and short stories in English and/or French in three age categories (9-11, 12-14 and 15-17), the contest gives an opportunity to talented students in this region to submit their work to judges who are professional writers. Winning entries appear in the annual anthology, Pot Pourri, published by the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library. Winning writers also receive prizes at an awards ceremony held at the end of March.

“This is a great way for talented young people to move forward with their work. Submitting poems and stories takes courage, but it is worth doing. If you are a writer, you want your work to be read or heard. And, if the writing doesn’t leave your head or stays on your own page, then it’s more in the nature of a journal or diary, which is fine, but not the sharing experience, which this contest offers,” JC suggests.

JC invited 15-17 year-olds to enter the amazing space where poetry works at the first workshop, billed as “What’s on your mind? Write? Edit? Post?”By reading together some of the winning poems over the history of the Awesome Authors Contest, JC highlighted features that attracted her and which led to the poem securing a place in the winners’ circle.

Some participants brought poems they had written, which they would not enter into this year’s competition. One past winner looked for insight into why a poem had not placed in the competition in a particular year.

JC reiterated what she explains at each awards ceremony: “Judging poetry is highly subjective. What one judge would choose might not appeal to another. Plus, how a poem ‘rates’ depends somewhat upon the competition, particularly when there’s a rich field of entries.”

JC’s approach with 9-12 year-olds departed from “What cereal boxes Say about Writing Poetry,” and focused on factors that make poems stand out from the pack, or the package! Again, the group looked at winning poems from past contest to show how they succeeded.

“I encourage emerging poets and short story-writers to submit their work in time for the mid-February deadline. I’d like 500 English poetry entries this year. I want to feel swamped and amazed by the creativity and daring of young poets.”

Information on where and how to enter is available from: http://biblioottawalibrary.ca.

Garnett Weiss apologized today for the error which occurred in the key for the cento poem “Hesitation marks,” which “Vallum: Contemporary Poetry” published in its last issue.

“I am at a loss to explain my lapse, since I take great care to ensure attribution and acknowledgment of the words of other poets and writers which inform my centos.

I now offer my most sincere apologies to poet Robin Robertson and to “Vallum” for misspelling his name. I am a fan of Mr. Robertson’s writing and cannot imagine what possessed me not to catch this error myself. I assure him and readers that I have corrected the key to this poem in all my files.”

Allison Woyiwada and Bob McMcMechan’s amazing book, “Allison’s Brain” continues to attract the attention it so well deserves.

See my review through their recent tweet at http://www.allisonsbrain.com/reviews.html.

I will post my review of the book on Amazon, etc., but offer this teaser here now to encourage people to buy the book by husband and wife team, Bob McMechan and Allson Woyiwada.

“Allison’s Brain,” available through on-line retailers and the publisher, Friesan Press, follows this remarkable couple as they team up with healthcare professionals, family and friends to support music dynamo Allison through very complex, dangerous surgery for a brain aneurysm and the long recovery period after the 12-hour operation.

JC was one of the friends who followed this odyssey closely and helped out whenever she could. “The book represents the triumph of this woman who faced such odds in risking the surgery and in surviving the aftermath setbacks. The narrative is sequential and includes notes from MDs, nurses, and therapists. It reproduces the regular updates which Allison began to send to her friends and family as the operation approached and which Bob continued to provide during all the many months of her recuperation. In annexes, there are ‘essays’ from speech and music therapists which illustrate powerfully how such programs can bring back brain function. There are telling anecdotes from some of the regular visitors to Allison during the stages of her recovery also in that section of the book.

“Most important to read, though, are two contributions: At the end of the book, Allison shares her own feelings and fears about what she has gone through. She is candid about what she remembers and what she cannot. Particularly revealing are her observations on her capacity to say what she meant: she always thought she was communicating clearly what was in her mind when in fact it would take a long period of her time and many therapy sessions for her to regain the ability to find the right words. Then, the last annex gives daughter Marya’s views on surviving the experience as the child who must parent her mother, not knowing whether and how all the efforts she, Bob, friends, and medical experts were making would play out.

“The book represents the best of the human condition: a triumph of science and spirit, of devotion, friendship, and hope. Allison’s perseverance and her family’s unrelenting efforts to bring her back to herself make for compelling reading for everyone, but particularly for anyone who has been exposed to the effects an acquired brain injury can have on an individual and the people who care about him or her.

“You come away from reading “Allison’s Brain” with respect for everyone involved in her story and a sense of awe about how the brain can renew itself,” JC concludes.

Here’s the link to the site where the book can be ordered: http://www.friesenpress.com/bookstore/title/119734000015343007/Robert-McMechan-Allison%27s-Brain

The film JC saw last night reminded her of the truth in the cliché about laughter being the best medicine.  A comedy in French, “Qu’est-ce qu’on a fait au Bon Dieu” (“Serial Weddings”), is both funny and human and absolutely the best comedy I’ve seen in ages, ” JC claimed.

Why write about the movie on this website? “I rarely write poetry that is humorous, ” JC laments. “I often asks myself why, when laughter brings such pleasure, I don’t celebrate humour in my writing? Because there sure is a need for comedy as an antidote to all the oppressive reality that screams from new headlines.”

JC has given herself a challenge: to find humour in her every day and bring what she discovers  and writes about to this site when she does. Will she succeed? Comments?

“Vallum” devotes its new issue to the theme of speed and travel and features poetry from Gary Barwin, Evelyn Lau, Jacob Scheier, Karen Solie, and Jan Zwicky among others.

“Hesitation marks,” a cento  by A. Garnett Weiss which pays homage to Robin Robertson’s poems, appears in the issue.

“It’s an honour to have Garnett’s work included in this fine magazine,” JC noted after attending the launch at the Supermarket in Toronto’s Kensington Market on September 29, 2014.

Here’s a link to the website where the magazine is available as a digital subscription: http://www.vallummag.com

JC attended the launch of the 8th anthology of winning poems and short stories in the Ottawa Public Library’s 19th Awesome Authors Contest.  JC has served as the judge of poetry entries in English for a number of years and in the past has edited the winning poems which appear in the collection. “What a great turnout of young writers, ” JC observed after the event. “In fact, many poets who couldn’t attend the award ceremony in the spring made it to the launch. It was great to see them there.”

“pot pourri,” the 2014 anthology published by the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library, is available from the OPL at a cost of $12.95. For more information, here’s a link: http://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/node/21442

“I consider it a privilege and honour to read the poetry of emerging poets in the 9-11, 12-14 and 14-16 age categories.  Their creativity knows no bounds, so that it’s always a huge challenge to select the winning poems from among such fine entries.”

In January, JC will offer two poetry workshops through the Library in the lead-up to the 2015 Awesome Authors Contest. The dates and times will appear on the OPL events listing and on this website as soon as they are set.

“I encourage all young writers to send in their best poems and short stories. I know that it takes guts to submit work for review by others but that’s the way writers become published authors and poets. What better way to launch a writing career than through the Awesome Authors Contest.”

Silver Birch Press’s focus in August is on self-portrature.  A. Garnett Weiss’s “In the third person” appears on August 9 at: http://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/in-the-third-person-poem-by-a-garnett-weiss-self-portrait-poetry-series/

“It’s grand that Silver Birch Press published this piece, which uses the syllable count and form of the tanka, ” Garnett Weiss notes.  “The poem examines how the brain is central to our individual human-ness and what vulnerability in the brain brings home to a person.

“The Editor chose an arresting image that complements the poem so well,” Weiss added. Artist Sandra Silberzweig created “The Truth is Reflected.” “Based on this experience, I wish I could involve Silberzweig in creating visuals that would complement my whole poetry collection. ”

The Silver Birch Press series feature two poets/poems per day by contributors from Canada, Australia, Austria, Colombia, India, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.

Sunset: Still waters

reflect the colour spectrum.

Later, fireflies.

A. Garnett Weiss

On parade

When we sallied forth, it was blue o’clock in the morning

after the night before.

The Malahide Road was quiet,

immortal wheat standing from everlasting to everlasting.

Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air

where fallen archangels flung the stars,

bronze by gold. Just a flash like that,

a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming.

With ratsteeth bared, he muttered

“Their last hour came like a thief in the night,

worth double the money, the stars and the moon,

and comets with long tails.”

I tackled him this morning on belief

and the whole jingbang lot.

“What’s the best news?

Who could know the truth?”

“But wait till I tell you,” he said.
“Wait a while. Hold hard

the act of a hero,” he said.

“Who has passed here before me?”

His eyes looked quickly, ghost bright.

“All I want is a little time,”

smiled with unseen coldness.

“Shatter me you who can!”

He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking trees,

where pigeons roocoocooed,

stood still in midstreet and brought his hat low.

The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange St.,

the most historic spot in all Dublin

swallowed by a closing door.

This Cento uses phrases  taken unaltered from Chapter 10 of James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” pages 210-244, 1922 text, Oxford University Press

It’s not often JC receives two rejection emails in one day. That double whammy coloured sunny Sunday a little bit, JC admits. As she says, if you send your work out, you should be hopeful. But, at the same time, it’s important to remember that what one reader or editor appreciates, another may not.

JC has spent the last couple of months focussing on her collection of centos,  which use lines from other poets’ work and combine them to create a poem that is new in form and meaning.

“This collection reflects my love of the form and the process, ” JC explains.  “I read books written by individual poets or anthologies which capture the work of many different poets. From such sources, I extract lines that affect me in some fashion. Often I choose words which I wish I had written!

“From there, I live with the lines for a while: a week, a day, a month… And I wait for a sequence, a story, a poem to emerge. Letting other poets’ words guide me to something unexpected feels like an adventure!”

The Found Poetry Review’s “In Bloom” project, in which one poet’s found poem per chapter or episode of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” would be published on June 16 attracted JC’s attention. She wrote a cento which uses key phrases lifted directly from Joyce’s narrative and links them to the coming of the prophet Elijah, also suggested by what is contained in Joyce’s 1922 text.

For June 16, JC will release the new cento, “On Parade,” on this website. Watch for it.

JC announced at the Awards Ceremony on March 25 that she created a cento using a line or a part of a line from each of the winning poems in Ottawa Public Library’s annual contest for young writers aged 9-17.

“The fine poetry these emerging writers submitted to the contest inspired me to write a cento in their honour, “JC explained to the overflow audience at Ben Franklin Place. The cento form takes single lines or parts of lines from another poet or poets’ work, and without changing the words, rearranges them into an original poem with an original sense and meaning.

Here is the cento, with a key that attributes each line to the poet who wrote it and with the title of the poem from which the line has been extracted. “My salute to these writers is offered in admiration for their talent and dedication to the craft of writing.”

Underneath my grains of sand

There’s a part of me that loves this world so much:
The tree still bears blossoms,
illuminating the new beginning,
where light exists as beauty,
a beacon of childhood memories.

Misunderstanding our ways into each other’s lives,
I want to know how we came to be
hollow eyes and missing heart,
whispered words hidden behind fists.

My hands were not made to hold yours,
to go where you want to go.

I can reach out,
help you pick up your pieces.
Completely your choice.

In a few years, this will all be gone.
Maybe we exist to be an extra in someone else’s life story
just glided through like I was biting into a cloud.

JC Sulzenko

            Cento Gloss: Underneath my grains of sand
            Title: Fiona Christine McCallum, “New Brunswick”
            Line 1: Kayla Rain, “Gina thinks we are forever”
            Line 2: Erin Jackson, “After the lightning”
            Line 3:  Lia Codrington, “Starting Fresh”
            Line 4: Kaitlyn Chen, “The Dreams”
            Line 5: Mackenzie Huggins, “ Walk in the Woods”
            Line 6: Kathleen McCulloch-Cop, “After I fell for you”
            Line 7: Bastien MacLean-Valenzuela, “I am”
            Line 8: Isabella Crysler, “The Girl Behind the Sunglasses”
            Line 9: Madeline Cuillerier, “The Girl in the Mirror”
            Line 10: Sarah McNeely, “My body”
            Line 11: Julia Dolansky-Overland, “But-But-But”
            Line 12: Irelynd Tackabury, “I am a thirteen year-old girl”
            Line 13: Wayquay Rombough, “Bigger Person”
            Line 14: Kate Gragg, “The Haiku”
            Line 15: Belinda Xu, “Flames to embers”
            Line 16: Kate Yeadon, “Explanations”
            Line 17: Sasha Hopkins, “The Giant Cookie. To: Lucy”

Lines or parts of lines taken from 18 winning English language poems by poets
9-17 years-old in the Ottawa Public Library’s 2014 Awesome Authors Contest

Yes, JC’s appearance  as a ‘church lady’ in a fine maroon velvet cape on the upcoming episode of Murdoch Mystery approaches.

Though JC harbours no illusions about how much exposure she will have in an outdoor scene in which she was one among many in a crowd, she looks forward to finding out what happens in the Episode. “But don’t blink, or you’ll miss seeing me!” she warns.

“I am delighted to learn that Murdoch Mysteries has not been cut by CBC. It’s an intelligent, entertaining show, and most of the time avoids the excess of gore that seems to characterize everything on prime time these days.”

Consult local listings for exact air times.

TONIGHT’s the night! The Ottawa Public Library hosts the annual awards ceremony for winning poets and writers who entered the 2014 Awesome Authors Contest.

The event at Ben Franklin Place (Centrepoint) welcomes emerging writers from across the community and their friends and family. Be prepared for a large and enthusiastic crowd. Extra seats are being offered this year after there was standing room only in 2014!

JC judged the English poetry entries which were excellent.  She looks forward to the reveal this evening and offers congratulations to everyone who entered the contest.

“It takes guts to send a poem out into the world, to let your words be judged in a contest.  To me, its akin to a parent who leaves her child at school or a summer day camp for the first time. Knots in stomach and all that!

This year’s entries were amazing. It’s always a challenge to chose the top six in each age category.”

The event begins at 7:00 PM.

JC comes to the Sunnyside Branch of the Ottawa Public Library to give two workshops for young poets in advance of the deadline for submitting poetry and short stories to the Awesome Authors Contest at the OPL. JC is thrilled to judge the English poetry entries in the 2014 competition. Winning poems will be published in the anthology, “Pot Pourri,” sponsored by the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library.

From 10:30-11:30 AM, poets ages 13-17 will have the chance to raise questions they have about their writing with JC who promises a chance to try out something punchy-new!

From 2:00-3:00 PM, poets ages 9-12 will play with words and forms they can shape, just like the ice sculptures artists create for Winterlude.

Wishing all my readers on this site happy and safe holidays and a wonderful 2014.

JC spent November 16 on the set of Murdoch Mysteries, now in its seventh season and on CBC. Having ‘won’ the walk-on role in an auction that raised funds for Reach Canada, JC stayed on the set from 6:45 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.in the garb of a respectable ‘churchwoman’ circa 1900.

In full make-up, wig and velvet cape, JC stood and interacted with around 50 actors who provided ‘background’ in the one scene that was the subject of that day’s shooting, which took place in a quadrangle on the campus of the University of Toronto.

“It was wonderful, though the too-thin clothing for a November day without much sun made for some shivering, and my hat weighed a ton!” JC observed. “I really am pleased NOT to have been a woman in those times, so physically constrained by fashion. The long skirt made it far too easy for me to trip, which I did, frequently!

What struck JC were the number of actors and crew involved in capturing just one scene for the hour-long program and how there was constant movement that looked chaotic but actually was the result of real choreography on the part of the director and the many assistant directors who were all linked by earphones.

JC had the chance between takes to meet both Yannick Bisson, who plays Detective Murdoch, and Jonny Harris, Constable Crabtree on the show. “Both actors were courteous and welcoming. It was a pleasure to speak with them and made for a memorable experience.”

JC left souvenir bookmarks from Reach Canada with key crew members and actors to express the organization’s gratitude to Shaftesbury Films for donating the walk-on opportunity as a way to support the fine work Reach does in Ottawa in the service of access to justice for persons with disabilities and community education.

Written by JC under the name of A. Garnett Weiss, ‘Fairy Tales’ crawls into a mother’s clothes closet and channels the mystery of evening gowns and silver dancing slippers as perceived as a child but remembered as an adult.

How well this evocative poem aligns with the theme for the new anthology becomes evident to readers in its final, arresting stanza.

Is this piece autobiographical? If JC will never tell, would Garnett?

For copies, contact Cranberry Tree Press (www.cranberrytreepress.com); 5060 Tecumseh Rd.E. Windsor, Ontario N8T 1C1. “Happenstance” will be published at the end of November

Judge Gregory Betts awarded prizes to three of JC’s poems in this Contest sponsored by the Niagara Branch of the Canadian Authors Association. “I am honoured and delighted that my centos enjoy such prominence in The Saving Bannister Anthology which the CAA launched over Thanksgiving weekend,” JC said. “I thank Gregory Betts for giving “Nothing is eternal. Not even the trees” First Prize and Honourable Mentions to “Against a guttering candle, written dreams” and “psyche.”

In his remarks that preface this year’s anthology, here is what Professor Betts said about the prize-winning poem:
“The winner is a cento. Now the cento is an ancient form, most famously used by the early Christians to produce versions of epic Greek poetry that didn’t contradict the tenets of their faith. The cento is a form that allows writers to look back on previous writing they admire and highlight precisely what they liked about their predecessors. “Nothing is eternal. Not even the trees” uses the cento in a remarkable way, turning back to Canadian lyric poetry of old and discovering a unified voice across the work of nine different mid-century Canadian poets. I don’t know if you know about Canadian poets, but they are a famously fractious bunch. They tend to disagree on weather that is good. This poem captures a shared note and tone of yearning for greater unity: form and content married in the uncovering of something new. It would take an essayist half a book to describe what this poem instantly captures in a handful of lines.”

JC approaches centos as though they were jigsaw puzzles. Lines written by poets from the last century and this one which speak to her in some way provide rich material from which JC crafts her own piece. “I am so encouraged by the response to these poems that I am now working toward a full collection of centos.”

JC uses the pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss when she writes poetry for adult readers. “Because so much of my published prose and poetry reach out to young people and families, I took on the pseudonym to distinguish what I write for a more general audience. Weiss already has been published in the Maple Tree Literary Supplement, for example.”

For more information on The Saving Bannister Anthology, please go to:http://canauthorsniagara.org/poetry-contest/. Copies of the anthology are avialable from The Canadian Authors Association Niagara Branch c/o 70 Champlain Avenue, Welland ON L3C 2L7 at $15 per copy, plus $3 for shipping/handling.

Cranberry Tree Press has selected the poem “Fairy Tales” for publication in its new anthology about luck, Happenstance, which will be published this autumn.
Written by JC under the name of A. Garnett Weiss, the poem brings forward moments from childhood to evoke the beauty and elusiveness of a mother figure. “I am delighted that this poem won a place in the collection and thank the judges and editors for including “Fairy Tales” among the works of such a distinguished group of poets. Here is the link to the list of contributing poets: http://www.cranberrytreepress.com/contest.php

JC has decided to post new poems that appeal to her to the line-a-day blog on this website. “I’ve worked on a number of writing projects over the summer months and have decided to share some poetry arising from this period of productivity from time to time.”

Starting today, Septembr 27, have a look at “Flight Immortal” which will be released line-by-line. This activity does not bring back the line-a-day project which JC undertook over more than two years and which came to an end once she felt posting a new line a day had become more of chore than a pleasure.

With her poem, “Spectacle” JC supports the fine work of the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists (see the poem at http://www.saveostranderpoint.org/spectacle-a-poem-by-jc-sulzenko/) in the organization’s appeal against the Environmental Review Tribunal’s dismissal of arguments concerning the impacts on the delicate alvar environment and on bird populations in the internationally designated Important Bird Area as a result of a project to site industrial wind turbines at Ostrander Point. The ERT did revoke the Government of Ontario’s permission for the 9-turbine project to proceed on the grounds that such a project would cause serious and irreversible harm to the Blandings turtle, already a species at risk.
Each turbine would be 3 times the height of the Peace Tower.
“This project and like projects in South Marysburgh make zero sense.” JC urges Ontarians to check out the PECFN website and the website of the Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County to find out the facts and how to support the citizen-based movement to site turbines elsewhere, where they will not harm people, the environment and species at risk.

Local writers reveled in the key tips JC revealed during the workshop she gave at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. With her suggestions to enhance the power of poetry, the group wrote poems on the spot, which the Church has undertaken to post on its website.

This 90+ minute experience with a pro encouraged poets to use words in a disciplined fashion since every word in a poem counts. JC also suggested new ways to pair verbs and nouns to achieve unexpected and original language. Here’s the link to the Church’s site:
http://standrewspicton.com/events/

As the song has it, summer brings good reasons to sing. Though weather ups and downs often confuse impatient worshippers of lazy, sunny days and meteor shower nights, fireflies, chorus frogs and distant whip-poor-wills create wonder.

Summer projects for JC include:
– editing the winning poetry from the 2013 Awesome Authors contest at the Ottawa Public Library and writing the foreword for Pot Pourri, the anthology of stories and poems to be published this autumn by the Friends of the OPL.
– crafting a commissioned poem on the 40th anniversary of The Glebe Report.
– refining her new play for children and families.
– creating a workshop for reluctant poets in Prince Edward County to free their voices — to be held in the evening of July 31 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church,Picton.
– anticipating the release of the Listen Up Ottawa commemorative book.
– smelling the roses, and getting the mites off them before they devour the leaves.

Wow!

That’s what JC had to say after the May 29 performance, under the baton of Rob Kapilow, who conducted the Gryphon Trio, students from Featherston Drive Public School and choirs under the direction of Jackie Hawley in the premiere of “Featherston Days,” an original suite arranged and composed by Andrew Staniland, based on music and poetry written by Grade 7 and 8 students at the school. JC was thrilled to have served this Listen Up! Ottawa project as poet-mentor.Go to the Ottawa Chambre Music Society Website for information on Listen Up! Ottawa.

“These young poets and composers show such promise. It has been wonderful to be associated with The Gryphon Trio’s project and with the school. The performance on May 29 provided a unique musical and literary opportunity to Ottawa audiences which revelled in these students’ creativity,” JC declared .

For her part in Listen Up! Ottawa at Featherston Drive Public School, JC spent many hours with participating classes and their teachers. She led a number of interactive workshops with each of the three classes involved, which focussed on building poetry-writing skills. She also offered individual coaching to students who wished to discuss their poems with her directly. Once all the poems were written, JC reviewed them and forwarded the students’ work to composer Andrew Staniland, who selected the poetry that would be incorporated into “Featherston Days.”

“I am hoping that Listen Up! Ottawa will publish a commemorative book on this project at Featherston Drive Public School. I look forward to seeing “Featherston Days” in print and salute The Gryphon Trio for enriching the project by adding this print dimension this year!”

In the autumn of 2012, the media advisory issued by the Chamber Music Society described Listen Up! Ottawa this way

“The initiative features Canadian composer Andrew Staniland and Ottawa poet JC Sulzenko, who will guide Featherston’s Grade 7 and 8 students in an intensive three-day creative writing and composition workshop. The three members of the Gryphon Trio (Roman Borys, cello; Annalee Patipatanakoon, violin; and Jamie Parker, piano) and percussionist David Schotzko will also be on hand to provide direction and inspiration.

“After the workshop is complete, Staniland will use the students’ collected ideas in a new musical arrangement, which the students themselves will perform on May 29, 2013 at Dominion-Chalmers United Church with the Gryphon Trio, the Cantiamo Girls Choir of Ottawa, the Ottawa Children’s Chorus, and members of Ottawa-based Leading Note Foundation’s Orkidstra. American composer and music commentator, Rob Kapilow, conducts.

“Listen Up! involves entire communities in a collaborative arts creation process. It teaches children to actively listen to music by engaging them in learning activities that combine music creation with poetry writing, music improvisation, movement, staging, and video creation. The program also offers parents the opportunity to re-engage with the arts, and it encourages local businesses and associations to support community arts initiatives.

“The Ottawa Chamber Music Society, whose mandate includes community outreach and arts education, is a funding partner and community host presenter of Listen Up! Ottawa. The Society will provide promotional, box office, front-of-house, and production support to the May 29 concert at Dominion-Chalmers.”

Awesome Authors 2013, photo by Rheal Doucette, Ottawa Public Library

JC awarded prizes to poets writing in English, aged 9-11, 12-14 and 15-17, at last night’s ceremony at Ben Franklin Place in Ottawa. The 18th Awesome Authors Contest which the Ottawa Public Library holds and which the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library (FOPLA) sponsor attracted well over 500 entries in the English poetry. English short story, French poetry and French short story categories.

When JC asked all of the writers and poets who had submitted their creative work to the contest to stand, the crowd applauded widely. She spoke of the W-O-W-S/U factors she considered in selecting the top six poems in English in each age category and of how impressed she was by the originality of the submissions. She even admitted she wished she had written some of the lines.

“It is an honour and a privilege to serve as a judge for this contest. I am so happy to see how ALIVE poetry is for the young writers in our community,” she stated.

The list of winning stories and poems are available from the Ottawa Public Library. These poems and stories will be published by FOPLA in an anthology, “Pot Pourri,” in October. FOPLA is running a contest for a new cover design for the publication and encourages all young artists to come forward with their concepts. Here’s the link to a photo of some of the winning poets: http://www.ottawapubliclibraryfriends.ca/media/pdf/Newsletter_Summer_2012.pdf

It’s not often that a request comes along to share insight into what you did when you began your career. In fact, that era, now surprisingly many years ago, seemed to JC to be part almost of another lifetime.
JC worked for more than thirty years in the Government of Canada. When she retired early, she embraced the writing life 100% and rarely looked back.
An email from Ed Conroy, founder of Retrontario (www.retrontario.com), brought her back to the past and to one truly creative accomplishment from those early days about which she still talks enthusiastically.
Here’s the link to the story which resurrects TV public service announcements in the 1970’s that featured aliens from outer space (puppets Binkley and Doinkel) as part of a program to teach children about hazardous product symbols on labels of household products so that they would not be tempted to play with such materials. Many adults who were children then still remember seeing the ads and the puppet shows in playgrounds and schools and learning of such dangers from them.
http://blog.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/blog/posts/rooks-of-hazard-the-true-adventures-of-binkley-and-doinkel/
JC continues to take delight in knowing that Binkley and Doinkel’s exploits were not in vain!

The Line-a-day poem blog began on this site one October as an experiment in disciplining JC to write and post each day. It continued through two Octobers in this mode, until February, 2013. At which point, JC gave herself permission to write and post, not necessarily on a daily basis, but rather when lines come to her. In such a way, she also frees herself to pursue new and enticing directions in her work.

When she does post, JC will only add one line at a time and will retain the tanka form for the posts, as she interprets it. In such a way, the poetry blog project will still carry its given ‘name,’ at least for now.

JC welcomes your feedback on either the process or on the evolution of her writing.

JC is delighted that the Alzheimer Society of Canada has included “What My Grandma Means to Say” on its list of resources to help children and families talk about dementia. Here’s the link to the Society’s listing: http://www.alzheimer.ca/en/Living-with-dementia/Staying-connected/Helping-children (see page 1 for the Discussion Guide and page 6 for the storybook.)
Recent appearances at local elementary schools on behalf of the Alzheimer Society of Lanark County (ASLC) gave hundreds of students the chance to talk about dementia in the context provided by JC’s reading of the play or the storybook. “These educational tools are effective because they are so child-centred,” JC emphasizes. “Many hands went up from among the 200 students at St. Mary’s Catholic School in Carleton Place when I asked whether anyone knew someone living with Alzheimer’s disease. These students raised excellent questions and greeted ASLC’s invitation to enter a contest to write a poem about dementia with real enthusiasm.”
“What My Grandma Means to Say” is all about bringing children into the dialogue about Alzheimer’s in a way that helps them build their understanding and strategies to handle whatever comes their way. With the Alzheimer Society of Canada’s listing, families, who could find “What My Grandma Means to Say” helpful, will now know how easy it is to access the material.
The Discussion Guide can be downloaded free from this website. The storybook is still available from General Store Publishing House (www.gsph.com) or from e-book retailers.

“I was thrilled with the number of students who were interested in
touching base with you and doing some follow up. We greatly appreciated
the format of Friday’s visit and have now completed the play and book as
a class read aloud and have begun practising dramatic readings of the
play in partners.It has been very helpful to many students who have had
to deal with Alzheimer’s in their family.” Sean Christy, teacher, Grade
4, Perth, Ontario