Category: A. Garnett Weiss

Starting yesterday, (yes, is a day late, explanation to follow), JC, using her pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss, will follow prompts from the Found Poetry Review (FPR)  to create a poem a day during National Poetry Month.

She intends to post them on this website at a minimum. “What can I say? I am a luddite and have as yet to figure out how to participate in this challenge on FPR’s website, except by adding the poem to my ‘what’s new’ page each day,” she sighed. “That’s why I’m a day late starting out.” She sighed again.

“This is my first experience with writing to a regime imposed by such relentless cues. I may decide some of the ‘output’ should stay as drafts, in which case, I’ll post a ‘gap’ message, just to keep me honest.”

Here is the first piece for April 1

they came in May on
the breeze; blown like tumbleweeds
dandelions seed

Prompts: word–tumbleweed; First 5 words–“They came in May on”

Source: ad for Fibre Containers in Oct. 1918 monthly Magazine

The past has a habit of not only of catching up but also of having a future.

A few years ago, JC Sulzenko began interviewing people whose choices about what to do and who to be in life interested her. In many cases, she spoke with friends and acquaintances. She also sought out strangers in lines of work she thought could offer possibilities for reflection and subject matter for her poetry.

Her purpose: To assemble up to forty ‘portraits’ as the basis of a volume of poetry which would capture what she learned and from which she could draw out the essence of her subjects through free verse.

She met with more than two-dozen individuals and wrote poems arising from each of these discussions. Several poems appeared in such publications as Maple Tree Literary Supplement and various volumes of The Saving Bannister.

Then, JC admits she allowed the project to be overtaken by other events, including the production of her play and later her book for families about Alzheimer’s disease, “What My Grandma Means to Say.”

That is until Silver Birch Press offered her the chance to have 15 pages of thematically-linked poetry included in its 2015 chapbook anthology, “Ides,” which was released on October 16, 2015.

Published under her pseudonym, A. Garnett Weiss, “Cameos, appearances” features poems informed by the lives of a doctor, a puppeteer, a passenger train engineer, an adjudicator, a jewelry artist, a librarian, a lyricist, a friend, a teacher, a composer, an innkeeper, a chef, a volunteer and a naturalist.

Here’s the link to the excellent video trailer Silver Birch Press produced for “Ides.”

https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2015/10/16/ides-a-collection-of-poetry-chapbooks/

The collection is available from Amazon.com at a cost of $ 15.

Today, Silver Birch Press has featured “What’s in my name” by A. Garnett Weiss in its ALL ABOUT MY NAME poetry series.

Here’s the link to the post:

What’s in my name by A. Garnett Weiss (All About My Name Poetry Series)

The poem and additional biographical and explanatory notes reveal choices JC has made to govern how she is called and calls herself.

“Yes,” she admits, “I have multiple identities that serve my purposes well, professionally and personally.” I enjoy being whoever I am at the time!

When no one was looking

It happens in this or maybe that way:
Inside you opens up, vault after vault endlessly.

I am not empty. I am open
and grow milder and wilder than here.

Time streams down from the sun and the moon
with journeys in its claws.

While the sleepless days relieved one another,
I have paid for what I ought to and have receipts for everything
heavier than life.

I know the deep. Where one is both prisoner and guard,
everything living sings, stoops, waves, creeps.

Cento gloss: When no one was looking

Title: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Epigram”
Line 1: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Indoors is Endless”
Line 2: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Romanesque Arches”
Line 3: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Nightingale in Badeluna”
Line 4: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Six Winters”
Line 5: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Vermeer”
Line 6: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Flyers”
Line 7: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “The Longforgotten Captain”
Line 8: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Streets in Shanghai”
Line 9: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Lullaby”
Line 10: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Yellowjacket”
Line 11: Tomas Transtromer/Don Coles translator, “Madrigal”

Although information on A. Garnett Weiss is available from www.jcsulzenko.com, an independent Web presence has now been established.

“Since Garnett’s work is receiving attention and being published in literary journals and on-line, it seemed a good moment to create a site dedicated to Weiss’s poetry. ” Go to  http://www.agarnettweiss.com to access the site, which will be updated on a regular basis.

On parade, JC Sulzenko’s poem, written under her pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss, draws on phrases taken directly from Chapter 10 of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Why this poem for this day?

“Bloomsday celebrates Thursday 16 June 1904, the one day captured in James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. The day is named for Leopold Bloom, the central character in Ulysses. The novel follows Bloom’s life and thoughts and a host of other characters – real and fictional – from 8 AM on 16 June 1904 through to the early hours of the following morning.” Quoted from the site of The James Joyce Centre Dublin @ jamesjoyce.ie/

“I couldn’t resist using phrases without changing a word to create this new work,” JC notes. “What came clear to me from Joyce’s words was the parade that goes on in Chapter or Episode 10 which I combined with the coming of Elijah. In my case, I took that as the coming of the prophet, where Joyce chose to give a man-made object the name.”

What do you think about this found poem? Let the poet know.