JC returns to sharing short reviews of books particularly those which she scores high. Go to Bookends on this site to read about Steinbeck’s 1962 memoir. JC finds it prescient and gives it a rating of 8/10.
A poem for today, January 20, 2025, written in 2017 and published in A. Garnett Weiss’s 2024 poetry collection, Life, after life—from epitaph to epilogue.
Trumped
Underhanded ways, shortcuts
wallpaper incorrigible pranksters
who thought nothing of hiding things,
weaving an unfiltered outlook, a myriad
of erratic logistics into action around the world.
Found poem sources: words and phrases drawn unaltered from obituary articles and death notices published in the April 29, 2017, Toronto Globe and Mail.
Here’s the link to the review written by Chris Fanning, literary maven and co-publisher of the Picton Gazette, Canada’s oldest community newspaper.
https://pictongazette.ca/post/poems-of-many-voices
“I welcome this serious and in depth consideration of my new poetry collection, the second one published by Aeolus House under my pen name, A. Garnett Weiss, ” JC noted.
The 60+ five-line, found poems each take words and phrases unaltered from death notices and obituary articles published in the Globe and Mail over a six year period.
“These poems are more about life than about death, even though the words originate with notices about people no longer with us, ” JC explained.
“When I know that a reviewer is focusing on my work, I await the comments with bated breath. The response to poetry is idiosyncratic, so personal to each reader. I recognize that what may appeal to one reviewer may not appeal to another.”
Chris Fanning’s take on Life, after life offers substantive analysis of and perceptive insights into the collection as whole as well as highlights his reaction to a number of poems, in particular.
“I thank Chris Fanning for his words which honour my work. I am grateful to The Gazette for giving Life, after life–from epitaph to epilogue such a fine reception.”
Copies of the book are available for purchase from this website and from these wonderful, independent bookstores: Books & Company (Picton), Perfect Books and Octopus Books (Ottawa) and Book City in the Beach (Toronto.)
In rob mclennan’s Periodicity Journal, prize-winning Ottawa poet Jean Van Loon gives Life, after life—from epitaph to epilogue a very fine reception. Here’s a link to the post:
https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2024/12/jean-van-loon-life-after-life-by.html
JC Sulzenko thanks Van Loon for her careful consideration of this collection of found poems, written under the pen name A. Garnett Weiss.
Van Loon comments on the collection of 60+ poems as a whole and shares her response to three poems in more depth. She concludes her review with these words:
“Though the elements used to write Life, after life are not drawn from poetry, they are drawn from accounts of real lives, each with its specific pleasures and griefs, adventures and disappointments, and Weiss has found the poetry in them. She has creatively selected and juxtaposed concrete and original images, spending time among the original fragments to allow her poetic imagination to discern a thread of story, feeling, mood. The tightly compressed poems she weaves with these threads, convey astute political commentary, emotional weight, and philosophical insight—all applicable to lives beyond those celebrated in the original obituaries. This book is a box of savoury bites to please a poetic palate.”
JC is grateful to rob mclennan for publishing this review on the heels of book launches in Toronto, Ottawa, and Picton.
Copies of Life, after life—from epitaph to epilogue are available through www.jc.sulzenko.com and from these excellent independent book stores: Book City in the Beach (Toronto); Perfect Books and Octopus Books (Ottawa); and Books & Company (Picton).
JC Sulzenko’s new book of poetry, Life, after life—from epitaph to epilogue, was launched November 30 at the Prince Edward County Public Library’s branch in Picton. The hour-long celebration included readings by those in attendance and ended with refreshments.
Published under her pen name, A. Garnett Weiss, Life, after Life is JC’s third poetry collection. In this new book she turns words and phrases found in obituaries published in the Globe and Mail into over 60, five-line, singular poems.
“I read them all—for the stories, for what they say about life rather than about death,” JC explained. “ I liken these poems to an epilogue or afterword, since each one rounds out what I drew from my readings rather than recasts an obituary about any one person.”
Keys at the end of the collection provide the given names of each person about whom JC read.
JC thanked the Library for its interest in and support for her work. She expressed her gratitude to Prince Edward County artist Martin Soldat for allowing the image of his painting to appear on the front cover.
To see Martin Soldat’s fine artwork, go to: http://www.soldat.ca
The cover of JC’s book appears on the top shelf of a jigsaw puzzle in three sizes displaying books by Canadian authors in a cozy setting. Through an innovative partnership, the Canadian Authors Association and its members benefit by showcasing recent publications.
Here’s how to buy a copy. Puzzle producer The Occurrence has in place solid arrangements to respond to every order. Go to:
https://www.theoccurrence.ca/product/canadian-authors-1008-504-192-pieces/168?cs=true&cst=custom
Copies of Life, after life are available through this website and at the following bookstores: Perfect Books and Octopus Books, Ottawa; Books & Company, Picton; and Book City in The Beach, Toronto.
JC thanks Editor Jenny O’Grady for selecting her to work with visual artist Vin Grabill for the 59th issue of The Light Ekphrastic (TLE.)
“I have been paired with exciting creators through this online, innovative journal a number of times. This autumn’s experience proved challenging and rewarding.”
The journal’s process allows each partner to select from three offerings submitted by his/her/their counterpart.
“Vin Grabill’s three paintings struck me forcibly. I found it hard to choose on which one to focus. Once I’d made my decision, I wrote “Geometrics for beginners” with Vin’s arresting image, “Idea,” as my point of departure.
“From the three poems I put forward, Vin created the image “Head held high,” in light of my poem, “Do-si-do.” His work gives me a deeper understanding of the layers of intention in my own writing.”
JC enjoys the collaboration at the heart of ekphrasis. “Looking at the work of an artist and then allowing myself as a person and a poet to respond, whether directly to the artwork, or indirectly as to where that reflection leads me, involves exploration, discovery, and learning. As I begin to write, I find that the poem knows where it must go to respond.”
Here’s the link to the online journal featuring their ‘ARTnership:
https://thelightekphrastic.com
Aeolus House launched JC’s new book of poetry, Life, after life—from epitaph to epilogue, on Sunday, November 3, at the Free Times Café in Toronto. The book is published under JC’s pen name, A. Garnett Weiss.
The event celebrated how JC turned words and phrases found in obituaries published in the Globe and Mail into over 60, five-line, memorable poems.
JC explained that reading obituaries was uplifting, not a ‘down’ experience. “I read them all—for the stories, for what they say about life rather than about death.” She likened the poems to an epilogue or afterword in the way each poem rounds out conclusions she drew from the prose articles and notices.
Keys at the end of the collection provide the given names of each person about whom JC learned. “Listing the names reflects my wish to honour the memory of each person about whom I read while respecting their privacy. The keys also acknowledge obituary articles to which I referred,” JC added.
The evening featured guest poets Donna Langevin and Kate Rogers reading from their own body of work in response to poems in Life, after life.
“I was honoured to appear on the same program with Kate and Donna. They chose their own poems with such care and attention and picked up on themes in the four poems from Life, after life that they read aloud. I am most grateful to them.”
Copies of Life, after life are available through this website, in Toronto at Book City in the Beach, in Ottawa at Perfect Books and at Octopus Books, in Picton at Books & Company.
COMING UP NEXT:
A book launch and reading in Ottawa at Perfect Books on Elgin Street at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, November 27, 2024, featuring JC and Toronto poet Allan Briesmaster.
The Prince Edward County interactive launch for Life, after life on Saturday, Nov. 30, at 2:30 PM, in the Travel Room of the Picton Branch of the Library on Main Street. With refreshments. And perhaps a chance to read a poem from the collection aloud.
Join JC over the weekend of October 14 and 15 to explore collage and found poetry and the dialogue between the two as part of the offerings from the The Prince Edward County Arts Council at the Armoury in Picton, Ontario.
Each afternoon, participants will delve into their personal experience and how that relates to spaces between, for example:
–seasons, when autumn gives way to winter;
–people or places, when leaving gives way to remembering;
–objects, where one treasure is lost and can or cannot be replaced.
On Day 1, participants will deep-dive and create a visioning board collage which gives expression to their thoughts. On Day 2, they’ll use magazine, newspaper, and other text sources to write found poems arising from their collage. Sharing and showcasing their work in the group and beyond the workshop will also be discussed.
The workshop will appeal to everyone, regardless of their writing or art-related backgrounds, with an interest in exploring relationships between visual art and self-reflection and in finding the poetry there. All materials will be provided.
Here’s a link to register for the program. https://countyarts.regfox.com/between-beauty-and-loss-with-jc-sulzenko
JC thanked the judges and convenors of the Prince Edward County Arts Council’s Annual Wind and Water Writing Contest for selecting her cento as the winning poetry entry.
The cento “For our many moods, there is nothing like a lantern” uses lines drawn unaltered apart for reasons of punctuation from individual poems by 9 different poets in The Next Wave, An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry, Jim Johnstone, Editor, Palimpsest Press, 2018.
Here’s what the judges had to say about the poem: “This cento captured this year’s theme in both form and content, offering a moving depiction of the poetic ties that connect one person to another.”
The year contest this year attracted the highest number of entries since the competition was established by the Arts Council in 2019. JC’s cento won the inaugural contest that year.
JC saluted each of the writers and poets who shared their fine work this way. Here’s a link to reading the winning entries and honourable mentions: https://countyarts.ca/wind-water-writing-contest/
JC was delighted with the turn-out for the April 11 ZOOM workshop on how to find a poem as a way to celebrate National Poetry Month!
Whether erasure, black-out, or cut-up poetry intrigues (or all 3!), this hour-long interactive session engaged local and faraway participants in exploring the possibilities for creating an original work from texts written by others. Centos were off the table for the discussions which focussed on erasure or black-out poems.
One writer commented she would use the learnings from the session with her students, who often freeze at the blank page when they try to write a poem. Another noted she hadn’t known much about found poetry and would add it to her repertoire.
JC thanked Arlene Smith, Chair of the National Capital Region CAA, for hosting the event and for the invitation to meet with these poets and authors, keen to discover new ways to the heart of a good poem. And she welcomed the lively conversation about the possibilities writing found poetry create.
Copies of JC’s collection of centos, Bricolage, are available from bricolage.weiss@gmail.com.
JC congratulated Catherine Graham (winner) and and Susan Olding (Honourable Mention) who took home top awards in the Canadian Author Association’s (CAA) Fred Kerner Book Award Contest.
She feels honoured to have had her collection of centos, BRICOLAGE, among five finalists for this national prize. Aeolus House published BRICOLAGE in 2021 under her pseudonym, A. Garnett Weiss.
Here’s a link to the June 18 announcement from the CAA :
https://canadianauthors.org/national/fred-kerner-book-awards-2022-winner-and-shortlist/
The judges’ wrote about BRICOLAGE in this way:
“A paean to the intoxicating power of not only the written word, but also of “borrowed” words, Bricolage is a singular triumph of centos—new poems created from other poets’ verse. Written over the course of a decade, these affecting, absorbing homages are a double-delight: first as cerebral, many-layered musings on both the fragility and resiliency of the human condition astride space and time, and second as a chance to honour the brilliance of the original works.”
In thanking the judges for placing BRICOLAGE on the short list, JC welcomed their generous comments about the poems in this gathering of centos. “BRICOLAGE remains in very fine company on the shortlist.” JC also thanked the CAA for the way in which the organization nourishes its members.
The Fred Kerner Book Award is awarded annually to a Canadian Author Association member who has the best overall book published in the previous calendar year–whether fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Fred Kerner was a devoted and long-time CAA member, an author, journalist, editor, teacher, and mentor.
Copies of BRICOLAGE can be obtained from bricolage.weiss@gmail.com, Books & Company (Picton, Ontario), and Octopus Books (Ottawa).
On October 15, JC and colleague Blaine Marchand gave a by-invitation, in-person reading from their new poetry collections for friends under the canopy at the most hospitable winery in Prince Edward County, Half Moon Bay Winery.
This event followed Aeolus House’s virtual launch of JC’s book of centos, BRICOLAGE, and Blaine’s BECOMING HISTORY on Thursday, September 23 before some 100 viewers.
“It’s a real pleasure to read aloud in front of people whose reactions are immediate and true rather than confined to the small screen,” JC observed.
On each occasion, JC read more than a dozen poems, including one cento that reuses lines from various poems in BRICOLAGE in memoriam the child victims of residential schools. “I didn’t know what to do” will remain unpublished as a one-time only cento of centos,” JC stated.
BRICOLAGE comes out under JC’s pseudonym, A. Garnett Weiss, adopted to give her distance from her lyric or narrative work.
JC admitted that gathering her centos into a volume proved challenging but also brought joy. She thanked poets Olive Senior, Keith Garebian and Gregory Betts for providing the fine comments which appear on the book’s back cover. She also acknowledged how grateful she is to fine artist Diana Gubbay for allowing her stunning “Cathedral Forest” collage to grace the book’s front cover. Here’s a link to Ms. Gubbay’s website: https://www.dianagubbay.com
“I thank Allan Briesmaster for publishing BRICOLAGE. It was an honour to share the programs with Blaine Marchand.”
To order BRICOLAGE for $18 plus shipping and handling, please email bricolage.weiss@gmail.com.
Copies of the book also can be purchased from Books & Company in Picton, Ontario, or from Octopus Books in Ottawa, Ontario .
“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. “I’ve now launched “BESPOKE POETRY” to give me the chance to create new poems this way.”
JC began her love affair with poetry written on demand many summers ago at what was then known as “Art in the park,” 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.
She attached certain caveats to the process: payment upfront; she held the copyright to the poem; no one could dispute what she had written; she reserved the right to refuse to write on a subject with which she was not comfortable.
Those who dared to test her skills were interviewed briefly about the subject they had chosen, then sent away to wander among the artisans. When they returned, they picked up the poem in a neat scroll. More often than not, they unravelled the poem and read it on the spot. And commented. Almost all very pleased with the result.
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, adding a tent and chairs to facilitate the interviews and for the sake of privacy. Each year, the price tag went up by a bit. The final year of her participation, the funds raised were donated to 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.”
Starting today and from time to time, JC will post her views about some of the books she has been reading. Each post will share her candid assessment of the craft and content of books on her reading list.
“Rather than simply going on to the next book, it’s important for me as a writer to reflect on how what I read stays with me.
“I admit I generally look at reviews only AFTER I finish a book so as to not have such comments predispose me to think about it in a particular way. So I recognize how my reflections may influence other readers to take up a book. Or to avoid it. It’s for that reason I want my thoughts to strike a good balance between honesty and respect.”
JC emphasizes that the views she expresses will be entirely her own. She’ll rate each book on a scale of 1 to 10. JC welcomes feedback on her comments through this website.
“Why not?” JC suggests. “So many writers have adopted a pseudonym when they explore a different genre from the one by which they are best known. Most recently, J.K. Rowling took on a nom de plume for her first book since the Harry Potter juggernaut. That novel didn’t attract much interest until her lawyer’s firm somehow managed to leak that she had written it. And then… Well, I’m not exactly sure what that shows, since she is the most successful woman writer of our time. However, for the mystery novel which followed that first effort, she used her own name, and that book turned out to be a success.
“When I began to write, I was still working full-time and wanted to differentiate my working life from my writing life. That’s when I began to sign my articles in the media and my poems and books for children as JC Sulzenko.
“What I noticed, though, was that my profile became dominated by the work I do with young, emerging poets and writers. While being typecast as a children’s writer is fine in itself, I wondered if such typecasting might influence how my poems for an adult audience would be received. It’s at that point I began to use A. Garnett Weiss as my pseudonym for poetry for a general readership.
Poems by Garnett have won a few prizes and appeared in a number of chapbooks and of on-line journals. Recently, one of the poems was shortlisted for Arc’s Poem of the Year 2014.
“I enjoy the double identity,” JC affirms. “Garnett is a daring poet, and I am happy to follow her lead wherever she takes me.”
What my grandma means to say, JC’s one-act play, gives elementary school-aged children and their families the chance to learn in a gentle way about how Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias can affect a person and what they can do to support someone living such a disease.
The setting provided by the play encourages children to ask questions in a safe-feeling environment, removed from the emotion that attaches when such an illness affects someone close to them.
Here’s a video that shows how to stage “What My Grandma Means to Say” as a play for elementary school-aged students. Performed last October by actors from Prince Edward Collegiate Institute in Picton, Ontario, for 200 students from C.M.L. Snider School in Wellington, Ontario, the play kick-starts discussions to which kids bring their questions, their own perceptions and their experiences about supporting someone who is living with Alzheimer’s. The production was made possible by a community partnership between the Alzheimer Society of Prince Edward County, Prince Edward Collegiate Institute and JC Sulzenko and by financial support from The Community Foundation of Ottawa and The Organix Foundation, Montreal. The March issue of Canadian Teacher Magazine profiled the video among news items on page 34. http://www.canadianteachermagazine.com/pdf/CTM-MarApr12.pdf
JC Sulzenko’s 48-page storybook adaptation of her one-act play about 11 year-old Jake and his grandma, who is living with Alzheimer’s disease, is now available from this website. Just send your request to info@jcsulzenko.com, and you will receive instructions on how and where to place your order. (The book is still available in hard copy and sells for $12.95 plus shipping and handling. The e-book will be re-listed at major sites soon.)
Illustrated in full colour by Gary Frederick, the book lets young readers, ages 8-12, and their families, share Jake’s experience as he watches his grandma change from world traveller, expert birder and best cookie baker to someone who forgets where she lives and cannot remember his name. Once Grandma moves to a long-term care residence, Jake becomes her regular Saturday visitor. He develops a routine and knows what to expect when he is with her, until an extraordinary conversation makes him think she is cured. Read More
New Website under construction
JC’s website is undergoing a major update and upgrade in content, look, and accessibility. Please bear with her and her wonderful webmaster as changes take effect over the next few weeks.
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