Category: Archive

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.

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.

“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.